


daddy (at) daycare

by tostitos



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Kindergarten & Pre-school, Crushes, Domestic Fluff, Dreamies as Children, Father of 3 Doyoung, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Mild Smut, Mutual Pining, Pining, Teacher Qian Kun, which may or may not be awkward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:14:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22071613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tostitos/pseuds/tostitos
Summary: There's definitely rules about getting too friendly with the parents of the children Qian Kun teaches at New Visions Kindergarten, but when a new pair of twins brings in beautiful, sweetheart Kim Dongyoung, he can't help but break all of them.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Qian Kun
Comments: 26
Kudos: 484
Collections: kuniversism





	daddy (at) daycare

**Author's Note:**

> As a kindergarten teacher working in a country that isn't my home country, Kun is literally me lmao. So, you can see how this prompt kind of spoke to me. I missed the 'troublemakers' part of the prompt until I was halfway done, but other than that I think (read: blindly hope) that it's not too bad. Also, I’m sorry it gets a little rushed in the end. I lost the last 7k three days before the deadline and considered not turning in the fic at all until I stopped feeling sorry for myself and tried to rewrite what I lost. I had to cut out some stuff I originally had to make it.
> 
> Joining this fest was a nice way to step out of my comfort zone (? kind of) since I'd never written someone in WayV (except like, winny) before I started this.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

“Laoshi! Kun-laoshi!”

Looking up from the notebook in his hands, the head teacher of Daisy class barely has a second to turn his head before a small boulder is crashing into his legs, almost making his legs buckle. His thighs bump against the table he’s all but leaning against and he lets out a whoa with a chuckle sitting under his tongue. Glancing over his shoulder and down at a shaggy head of hair, Kun reaches down and plants a light hand atop the child’s head.

“Don’t run, Jaemin,” he chides lightly, brushing the boy’s hair out of his eyes.

Jaemin pouts, little hands still curled in Kun’s sweater.

“Jeno took my toy!” he whines, looking back at where another boy with his black hair cropped short behind his ears is holding a car made of legos and staring at the with a frown.

“I did not! I was playing with it first!” Jeno says, round cheeks turning red at the accusation. 

Raising an eyebrow, Kun calls over Jeno who waddles over with the car clutched in his small fingers. He turns the notebook over and lays it face down as to not to lose the page containing a note from Yeji’s mother about the cold she’s had for the last few days.

Crouching, he puts himself on the same level as the two four year olds and looks between them with a frown. When he was in university, dreaming of entering childcare and stressing over his certification, he thought disciplining children would be the hardest part, not wanting to be too strict and step on the toes of their parents but not wanting to be too soft and lose any sense of authority. And he was right about some things - disciplining is difficult, but mostly because he finds his kids so cute, it’s hard not to smile. 

“Did you take the car from Jaemin, Jeno?” Kun asks, tone level but stern enough to show he’s not taking this lightly. 

Jeno shakes his head and hugs the car close to his chest. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t reiterate that he was playing with it first, just gives Kun those big, sad eyes and that wobbly lip.

“It was mine!” Jaemin says, reaching out to take the care while Jeno moves it out of reach.

Kun makes a noise of disappointment and both boys look at him sadly. 

“Jeno,” the boy holding the car curls his shoulders in and looks down at his feet, “did you take the car?”

Jeno doesn’t say anything for a moment and Kun gives him the time he needs. Whining, he holds out the car to Jaemin who snatches it back.

Kun gives Jaemin a look and the boy turns his head way, feigning ignorance. Sighing through his nose, Kun looks at Jeno. 

“You have to share the toys and play with your friends nicely. If you want to play with something, you have to ask if you can have a turn, okay?”

“Okay,” Jeno mumbles quietly.

“Now, say I’m sorry to Jaemin.”

Jeno looks at Jaemin’s face and properly apologizes and Kun lets a small smile slip onto his face. 

“Go play nicely.”

He watches the boys return to where an ocean of lego blocks is spread over the wooden floors and make sure they don’t start arguing before turning his attention to Yeji’s notebook again.

Coming to Korea to work at a Korean-Chinese kindergarten was a decision that his family didn’t really understand. _Why can’t you just find a school here? What even is there in Korea? Is there something wrong with China?_ Kun has heard it all and then some. 

But he couldn’t explain what it was that drew him to Korea since he first came for a summer immersion program when he was nineteen, and if asked now, almost fifteen years later, he still wouldn't be able to put into words what he loves about Korea.

His mother still asks when he’s returning when he visits during extended holidays, but Kun didn’t spend all these years studying Korean, didn’t pack up his life and move it across the sea, just to go back. Not so soon, at least.

Closing Yeji’s notebook and making a mental note to check her temperature a little later in the day, Kun places it on the table in front of all the other notebooks he uses to communicate with the children’s parents. 

He claps his hands in a pattern of five and turns to face his playing students.

“Alright, when I call your name, come get your notebook and put it in your bag.”

“Okay!” all of the children chirp out in response.

“Yeji…Chengxiao…”

Sliding his multi-pocket folder and his planner onto its surface, Kun slides into one of the hard backed office chairs lining the meeting table in the center of the front office after all of the children have gone for the afternoon. The warm air pulsing from the vents is a godsend after spending all day in a cold classroom, unable to turn on the heat despite the early autumn chill so the children don’t fall ill due to the varied temperatures inside and outside. Kun fiddles with the zipper to his Brown and Edward hoodie that he bought overpriced at the LINE store before ultimately sliding it down and revealing a black tee with a snoozing snoopy printed on the chest. Behind him, the door to the office slides open.

“Right in front of the mothers as I was sending the children off, Jimin pooped his pants,” complains Taeil as he walks in, hugging his Starbucks tumbler to his chest. He doesn’t bother hiding a yawn as he rounds the table and takes a seat across from Kun. “We just got him out of diapers last week, like what is it going to take to potty train this kid.”

Kun offers a smile that’s more amusement than sympathy. Looking up from his tumbler, Taeil catches the look on Kun’s face.

A snort finally breaks past Kun’s lips when a foot jams into his shin. “What? It’s funny.”

Before Taeil can express how unfunny carrying a sobbing four year old with urine dripping down his legs to the bathroom to clean and change him while his mother just smiles and apologizes lightly for the trouble was, the other teachers file in and take their seats in their respective spots at the table. Irene and Fei, in charge of the five to six year old classes, sit at the edge of the table; he and Taeil, the main teachers of two three to four year old classes sit beside them.

Victoria trails in from her personal office attached to the staff room and takes her seat at the front of the table as their head teacher.

“Good afternoon, teachers,” Victoria greets.

They all bow their heads in respect as they respond in chorus.

Kun clicks his pen and flips open his planner to the current week.

“It looks like a few children are falling sick after this weekend’s rain and chill so please always look after your children as approach our fall picnic.” All of the teachers nod their heads. Victoria opens a file and looks over the contents inside. “So we have two boys joining the school starting next week, correct? The twins.”

Kun Nods. “Yes. Kim Jisung and Kim Chenle.”

“And they are both joining your class, Qian-laoshi?”

“Yes,” he answers. “Including the two of them, both Taeil and I will have sixteen children each. Everything is already prepared for them to join the class.”

It’s an odd season to have new students join the kindergarten but Kun is excited to welcome the boys to Daisy Class. He wasn’t able to meet them or their parent when they visited the kindergarten a month ago, at the time busy with something he doesn’t even remember, but Taeil said they were good kids who didn’t necessarily seem like they’d be problem children.

“Their father is so young to have twins and another son,” Fei comments.

Kun hums, remembering the profiles of the twins he was given when it was decided they would be added to his class. Two four year old twins and a fifteen year old. Kun has to give their father respect for managing a house of three boys while working a full time job. They don’t have many single parents around with the money to enroll their kids here.

“Is it just him?” Irene asks, not privy to the immediate information like Fei is as the senior most teacher and Victoria’s unofficial right hand.

Kun nods. “There’s no mention of a spouse.”

Irene makes a noise of muted surprise. “What does he do?”

“He’s a nurse at a family medical practice,” answers Taeil. “Seems like he’s making it work somehow.”

Victoria closes the file. “Well, I’ll leave it up to you, Qian-laoshi.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“You staying late today?”

Kun looks up from the assortment of origami paper they’ll be using on Monday during craft time to make pumpkins and glances at his open doors where Taeil is lingering. Thinking about what he has left to do, Kun shrugs. “I’m mostly done everything. I’ll probably check that I have everything for the new kids one last time and then go,” he answers. “Are you going now?”

He glances up at the clock reading ten after five. He should be able to make it out of there without staying too much overtime, probably in the next twenty or thirty minutes. Maybe he’ll be able to make it home in time for that historical drama he just got caught up on over the weekend.

Taeil, too, looks at the time. “Yeah. Rather not stay here any longer than I have to when I’m not getting paid for it,” he says with a laugh.

Kun empathizes with that. A smile breaks out on his face and he chuckles in turn. “Goodbye.” He shoos his co-teacher off. “See you Monday.”

“See you,” Taeil sings as he disappears behind the wall on the side of his own classroom.

Kun goes back to organizing the origami paper, glancing up another quick moment when Taeil passes by again with his bookbag strapped to his back to shoot him another goodbye on his way out. Taeil tells him to get home before it starts raining, Kun reassures him that he will, and then he’s left alone again.

Twenty orange and yellow squares of origami paper separated into piles of ten sheets each later, Kun cleans up. He glances at the little cubbies where the children keep their art supplies and where he’s already labeled the two small lockers for the new boys he’ll welcome the next week.

He’s already made sure he had internalized everything important about the boys -- Born November 22, 2016. Recently moved to the area with their single parent father, Kim Dongyoung, and an older brother in his first year of high school. Neither of them have any allergies or medical conditions that require extra care. They attended a kindergarten in their last neighborhood in Guri so Kun isn’t very worried about them making a fuss in the mornings when they arrive or getting along with the other children.

After checking the lockers on the other side of the room where the children keep their jackets and bags are also labeled with the boys’ names, Kun locks the windows of his classroom and shuts the blinds. He presses the button on the thermostat and listens as the whirring of air rolling through the vents hisses to a stop.

Grabbing his bag, he slings it over his shoulder and leaves his room, switching off the lights as he goes.

The kindergarten is mostly dark after hours, only a few lights left on. Kun takes out his phone as he walks through the main hall where they have group events, toward the front office.

He’s got a few emails that are mostly spam, a text from his worst friend, Chittaphon, about the cute, new secretary at his office in their group chat with Sicheng and another text from Sicheng _not_ in their group chat about how much he doesn’t care about ‘the hot secretary with the thick accent who, according to Chittaphon’s calculations, could possibly hold both of his asscheeks in one palm’.

Kun snorts as he drifts into the office and Irene looks up from the laptop she’s making some document on.

“Going home?” she asks, offering him a light smile.

“Yeah.” Kun rounds the meeting table. There’s a large whiteboard calendar on the wall listing all of the events and such going on at the school during the month and he scans over it despite having the schedule practically memorized.

“I wish Fei would go home. I have to close up today and she’s keeping me here late on a Friday night.” She wipes at a nonexistent tear.

Kun chuckles. They all know the pains of being the one to open and close the school for the day but being able to go until every else has. “I’m sorry,” he says sympathetically. “Be safe when you’re finally on your way home.”

She thanks him with a wave and then he’s out the front door.

The area around the kindergarten is nice, the neighborhood a bit on the wealthier side. The downside is that it’s in a suburb that’s a twenty minute walk from the nearest train station.

As he winds through the quiet streets, he opens his chat with Sicheng and sends the snoring emoji. As soon as he sends it, his phone pings with another message from the group chat. Chittaphon, of course, still making sure they know he’s dehydrated in a desert of warm laughs and low mumbled Cantonese.

‘When is he going to realize that no one cares,’ Sicheng sends in the group chat.

Kun grins as he sends the grimace emoji. ‘Wrong chat, Cheng.’

‘No, it’s not. Ten, nobody cares.’

Snorting as he gets an incoming text from Chittaphon complaining about how they need to kick Sicheng out of the group now that he’s happily domesticated, Kun takes a screenshot of the thread to send to Sicheng with an unhappy ‘you did this to me :/’. He doesn’t respond to Chittaphon because it’s not like Sicheng lied about them not caring and pockets his phone after all he gets from Sicheng is a shrug.

When he nears the train station, the streets liven and fill with people wandering in and out of the shops around it.

“Kun-seonsaengnim!”

Whipping his head in the direction of the squealed call of his name, Kun finds tiny, chubby cheeked Yeri, one of the girls in Fei’s class, standing with her hand clasped in her mother’s a few meters down the platform. She’s all smiles and excited bouncing despite having seen him earlier that day and he smiles warmly at her, waving his hand at her and inclining his head in a slight bow at her mother.

He walks in the opposite direction of them, always preferring to leave a bit of distance between himself and the families when outside of the school. Within the walls of the kindergarten, he’s as emotionally and physically available as his role as teacher permits; outside of them, he’d rather be the familiar face they recognize and little more than that. Not only for security reasons, but because if he’s always Kun-seonsaengnim, then he’s never just Qian Kun. Children and their parents want to see the admirable man who seems like he can do anything and everything and sometimes he just wants to be the man who watches trashy dating shows and eats scrambled eggs with maple syrup at one in the morning.

Nonetheless, it’s a nice feeling – knowing that he sparks joy in his students, that they genuinely love him and their parents appreciate the care he gives them during the week. He’d never trade that warm feeling of satisfaction for anything in the world. Pure happiness is a concept that not many grasp, but he thinks that he comes close when he sees the smiles on his children’s faces, when he finishes each day without a doubt in his mind that he’s where he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be and doing what he was born to do.

He used to have those worries before he left Fujian, when he was rejected from the first few schools he applied to. Just as his mother asked why he needed to go to Korea to teach, so did the Korean kindergartens themselves ask why they needed to hire a Chinese man to lead their classes. But then he stumbled upon New Visions Chinese School and everything fell into place.

And he wouldn’t change anything for the world.

Monday at thirty-six minutes past nine finds Kun running through the halls of the kindergarten, his planner and his file folder nearly slipping out of his hold. He slows down to a light jog before he enters his classroom, pasting an easy smile on his face when he sees Dahyun standing outside the glass doors leading to the small playing ground where the parents drop off their children. Sliding his belongings onto the counter above the children’s cubbies, he moves to open the door.

“ _Zao an_ , Dahyunnie,” he greets, just a little out of breath. Looking out to the street on the other side of the field, he, expectedly, doesn’t see the little girl’s mother. Not all of the guardians walk the children up to the building and that’s just as well when he gets held by Victoria after the morning meeting and has to rush to greet the children.

“ _Zao an, laoshi_.” Dahyun grins up at him, cheeks still round with fat.

“Go on and change your shoes.” Kun steps away from the door to take some of the toys that are too high or too heavy for the children to retrieve themselves and leaves them within reach. When he turns around, Dahyun is entering the room, struggling to carry her water bottle and the bag she’s taken off for some reason. He lets her figure it out, returning to the door in time to see Dejun skipping over with his hand clasped in his father’s.

“Good morning, laoshi,” Dejun chirps once he’s outside the classroom. He lets go of his father’s hand and sits on the terrace to begin pulling off his shoes.

Kun smiles at the boy’s father and offers to take the tiny bookbag and water bottle held by the man. He places them inside, telling Dejun where he can find them, and gets an inattentive hum in response.

After Dejun enters the room with an excited wave goodbye to his father, the children of Daisy class begin to steadily arrive. Kun is talking with the mother of Yang Yang – a boy in Taeil’s class, but his mother doesn’t speak Korean very well – when he spies two boys he’s never seen before waddling up behind her.

He bids Yang Yang’s mother goodbye, motioning to the children and explaining that they’re new to the kindergarten.

Kun offers the boys a friendly smile, crouching to be on the same level. "Good morning," he greets in Korean. He's momentarily surprised when they respond in Mandarin but then his smile broadens into a wide grin. He was told they knew some Mandarin, but usually children are most used to using the language they are constantly surrounded by.

"What's your name? I'm Kun-laoshi," he says, adding on the title so the children know to not call him without it.

The boy on the left, with big eyes and even bigger cheeks, curls into himself a little. "Jisung." 

On the right, Chenle looks little like his fraternal twin. He's just as shy, though, lifting his hand in the tiniest, most adorable wave as he mumbles his name. 

Behind them, a pair of legs clad in loose, dark blue pants stops and Kun's eyes travel up them, past the matching scrubs shirt, to a pretty face and warm, owlish eyes. 

'Oh, he's cute' zips through his mind and he quickly catches the stray thought and locks it away before it can go anywhere. Standing up, Kun puts on the smile for parents and bows. 

"Good morning. You must be Mr. Kim." Kun, for some reason, holds out a hand for a shake. "I'm Qian Kun, the teacher of Daisy class. It's very nice to meet you."

Mr. Kim offers him a polite smile that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle the slightest bit. "Kim Dongyoung," he introduces, voice a melodic tenor. He glances at his hands carrying the various things the boys will need while they're at the kindergarten and Kun quickly takes his hand back before the realizes he should take the bags from the man. "It's nice to meet you as well. Sorry we didn't get a chance to meet before today."

Taking the bags holding the boys' art supplies, the hangers for their locker, and other items, Kun shakes his head as he takes a step back. "No, it's alright. I'm sure you must have been busy with moving." He places the bags inside the classroom, turning his head to make sure the few children inside aren't getting into anything they shouldn't be. When he sees them playing by themselves, he turns back to Dongyoung and the twins. 

"You can take off your shoes and put them in any shoe box you like," Kun says to the twins standing around aimlessly, their hands clasped between them. They look up at him and then follow his pointed finger to the shoe boxes outside the classroom. Once they both sit down to take off their shoes, Kun looks at their father again. "Have you finished settling in?" 

Dongyoung seems a little surprised at the continuation of conversation but the polite smile never leaves his face. He nods. "Just about. Unfortunately, I can't take advantage of the boys starting school and having an empty house to get the last of the unpacking done, but it'll get done at some point," he says with an airy chuckle. "I'm from Guri so it hasn't been too difficult of a move which is nice."

"That's good." Kun approaches the twins. He holds out a hand for the drawstring pouch in Jisung's hold, asking if he can help.

With a shy nod, the boy hands over the pouch and Kun loosens the string, opening the pouch and handing him the indoor shoes he'll wear around the kindergarten. Watching the exchange, Chenle opens his own pouch on his own and turns it upside down, shaking his shoes out onto the terrace. 

Kun hears Dongyoung snort behind him and it makes him smile. 

"Lele, Jisungie," Dongyoung calls in a soft voice. He crouches when the twins look at him. "I'm going now. Be good and listen to Kun laoshi and the other teachers, okay?" 

Both boys nod. "Okay, Papa."

"High five." When Dongyoung holds out both his hands, Jisung and Chenle run over to him in their socks and slap his hands. Grinning, Dongyoung pets their heads. "I'll see you later."

He stands up, grin still at full wattage when he looks at Kun. 

That stray thought about how cute the man is escapes its cage and rushes straight to the forefront of Kun's mind. 

"Sorry, I can't stay any longer to talk a little more," Dongyoung says, starting to walk backwards toward the street. "I'm still a little unfamiliar with the roads so I want to give myself some time to get lost before I make it work."

Shaking his head, Kun chuckles. "Don't worry about it."

"If there's anything, you can call me anytime."

Jisung and Chenle, finished with shoving their feet into their indoor shoes, stand at the edge of the terrace. 

"Will do. Have a nice day, Mr. Kim." Kun settles a hand on the back of Chenle's head, softly petting his hair. "Say goodbye to your daddy, boys."

"Bye, papa!" Both boys shout, waving excitedly. 

Dongyoung waves at his children. "Bye bye. Be good." He blows a kiss that makes the boys giggle and stomp happily and then he turns around to leave the premise of the kindergarten. 

"Okay, Jisung, Chenle," Kun calls, gaining the boys' attention. "Let's go inside and meet your new friends, hm?" 

By the time the rest of the children of Daisy class finish arriving and Kun has the time to show his new students the basics of the room, Jisung and Chenle have begun settling in. Kun watches Jeno and Chenle build something out of lego blocks while Jaemin shows Jisung all of the funny illustrations in one of the pictures books.

Smiling, and glad to see they're not too shy and uncomfortable, Kun picks up their art supplies where he left them by the door. He takes out the pale blue art supply box that every child uses and arranges their modeling clay set, crayons, and colored pencils inside. When he's finished he calls the twins over and shows them the inside of the box. 

"This is your arts toolbox," he says and points out where everything should be placed so it all fits inside. He walks over the cubbies in the back of the classroom and couches down beside where he's pasted labels of their names. "Jisung, this is yours and Chenle, this one is for you. Can you put your tool box inside?"

Both boys take their toolboxes, Jisung having a little more trouble getting his smaller hands around the sides of the box, and shove them into their own spaces.

"Like this?" Jisung asks, voice squeaky. 

The lid on his box has come ajar and Kun slides it back into place. "Yes. Very good," he compliments in Chinese, giving them a thumbs up so they understand. Standing up, he switches back to Korean. "Follow me."

Neither of them are wearing jackets, but Kun shows them their lockers where they'll keep them once it gets too cold for only a sweater. When he tells them this is where they'll put their bags holding their spare clothes and their toothbrushes for after lunch, they rush to pick them up from by the door and place them in their adjacent lockers. 

"Kun laoshi..." Chenle starts after Kun tells them they're allowed to play again. 

Humming lightly, Kun drags a hand over the boy's head.

"Are you Chinese?"

“Yes, I am.”

Eyes blowing wide like helium party balloons, Chenle’s mouth rounds in a tiny circle and he grabs Jisung by the arm. “Me and Jisungie are too!” he says, bouncing happily on his toes. “Papa said we can learn Mandolin.”

There are a number of children of Chinese ethnicity and descent enrolled at the kindergarten and Kun, admittedly, feels a different sort of fondness for them than he does the Korean children, but the warmth that spreads through his chest as he gazes at the twins feels like the breeze on a summer day with the bluest of skies.

Jisung furrows his brows and looks at his brother with a frown. “It’s Mandarin.”

“Do you try to use Mandarin with your daddy?” Kun asks, a bit of laughter in his voice as he watches the two boys frown at each other.

Jisung shakes his head. “Papa can’t speak it.”

A part of Kun is surprised by that even though he hasn’t really made any assumptions about them. He was interested in Chenle’s name, but the available information about the Kim family meant that it was impossible to know if Chenle’s absent parent was Chinese or if the boys were fully Korean and Dongyoung simply liked the name. The way it seems now, the boys have most likely only had their father in their lives and only know that they’re Chinese because he’s told them.

What exactly happened between Dongyoung and the boys’ mother isn’t any of Kun’s business, and he has no plans to dig any deeper into their family history if it isn’t necessary for his job, but it’s heartwarming to know that despite everything, Dongyoung is interested in introducing his children to their Chinese heritage even if he can’t personally do so himself.

He feels a greater sense of respect for the man, as if being amazed at him leading a household of four all on his own wasn’t enough. _And_ he’s beautiful. Some things just aren’t fair.

“Then you have to talk with me a lot,” Kun says, smiling broad and already fond. “And then you can teach your dad, okay?”

Both boys nod enthusiastically, retuning Kun’s smile with matching grins of their own.

Chenle looks at Jisung. “Do you want to play with the blocks?”

“Yeah!” Jisung reaches out for Kun’s wrist. “Laoshi, come play with us.”

"Alright, everyone, you may slowly walk to your parents," Kun dismisses the children at the end of the day, after he's finished telling the gathering of mothers and fathers around his classroom what they did during the day and to remember to turn in their participation forms for the autumn picnic.

He watches the children step off the terrace and join their parents, always watchful of if anyone is going to have an accident while they're still on the kindergarten grounds. Dejun waves at him enthusiastically as he walks away with his mother and baby sister and Kun returns the wave with a warm smile. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees someone walk up to him and he turns to face Dongyoung. Behind the father, Jisung and Chenle are running around playing tag. 

"Good afternoon, Mr. Kim," greets Kun. 

Dongyoung has changed from his scrubs into a burnt yellow button-down, the top two buttons left undone, and tucked it into a pair of black, fitted jeans held up by a brown belt. He gives Kun that broad smile again, the one that momentarily makes Kun forget that it's not appropriate to think about how attractive his children’s parents are. 

"Good afternoon," Dongyoung returns. "I hope the boys didn't give you too much trouble today."

Shaking his head, Kun waves him off. "They were completely fine. No problems at all. They got along well with the other children."

Dongyoung laughs. "Give them some time. They'll start driving you crazy eventually," he says, but there's nothing but pride shining in his eyes at the compliment. Briefly, he glances over his shoulder to check where the twins are. "They were excited about starting school, so I'm glad it sounds like they didn't get nervous one they got inside."

"Naturally, they're unfamiliar with the way some things work here, but it looks like they'll pick up fast."

Dongyoung hums. "They're smart." Brushing a finger through his fringe, he blinks at Kun. "Actually, laoshi, just now you mentioned something about a picnic..."

"Ah, yeah." Kun nods. "We're having a picnic on the eighteenth. Everyone will go to the nearby park and we'll have lunch there outside. I put the flyer with all of the details in Jisung's bag, but that day we'll need you to prepare lunch for the boys," he explains.

The fall picnic is, honestly speaking, more trouble than it's worth - it's not like a field trip where the kids can experience something exciting - but it costs nothing to take a walk to the park and there's nothing better than free fun and memories. It's not Kun's favorite activity that they do at the kindergarten but the kids enjoy it at the very least. 

Last year, three kids peed themselves because they were too distracted with playing to say they needed to use the restroom; that's not really a problem usually, but they don't bring the children's spare clothes to the park and having multiple sobbing children in soiled clothing when you've only brought one pair of clothes from the kindergarten's supply because you need your hands as free as possible and hope your kids will tell you when they need to go to the bathroom is, understandably, just a _little_ draining. 

Dongyoung tilts his head to the side, nose scrunching up in thought, and the action shouldn't be as adorable as it is on a man Kun's age. "You said something about participation forms. If the picnic is during an ordinary day, may I ask what the form is for?"

"Chaperones," answers Kun. "Since we're such a small school, when we leave the premises, we ask for a few parents to help watch over the children." 

Mouth rounding as a sound of understanding escapes his lips, Dongyoung nods. He looks around at the emptying yard, running a bit of pink tongue over his lips. Before he can say whatever he plans to say next, a small body crashes into his legs. 

"Papa!" 

He stumbles a bit and Kun reaches out instinctively to steady him but freezes before he touches the other man. 

Chenle latches onto Dongyoung's thigh and stares up at his father with wide eyes. 

Dongyoung places a hand on the boy's head. "Be careful, Lele," he chides lightly. 

No longer in a high speed chase with his brother, Jisung quietly shuffles up to Dongyoung's other side, poking at his hand until Dongyoung holds his. 

Glancing at Kun who quickly drops his arms to his sides, Dongyoung shakes his head and sighs fondly. "They're gonna take me out one of these days."

Kun returns the smile, gazing down at the twins. 

"Papa!" Chenle bounces on his feet. "Kun laoshi said he'll teach us Mandolin and then when we are good at it we can teach you and then...and then...and then..." He drifts off, realizing he has nothing left to say.

"You're gonna teach me _Mandarin_?" Dongyoung repeats, grinning down at his son with a raised eyebrow.

Chenle nods back enthusiastically. 

Dongyoung taps him on the nose, delighting the boy who giggles. "How do you know I'm not better than you at Mandarin?" 

"Renjunnie hyung always says you sound silly!" Jisung chimes in, the very image of innocence despite his words. 

Dongyoung taps Jisung on the nose in turn. "You sound silly."

The response doesn't make sense, but it doesn't have to in order for Jisung to be completely amused by it, stomping his feet and laughing and calling his father silly again. Watching the exchange, Kun laughs. He's only seen them together for the first time today, but he can tell they're a close-knit family. Kun wouldn't call himself old and Dongyoung is the same age, but like this, teasing his children with the same round eyes that they have makes Dongyoung look so young and alive. 

"But yes," Dongyoung cuts off his children who have started a song infamously titled 'Papa is Silly'. "You should teach me so you have to listen to Kun laoshi well, okay?" 

"We know!" 

"Okay!" 

Dongyoung holds out his hands and his sons latch on to them. “Say goodbye to your teacher.”

Kun waves at the family, smiling a little more fondly when the boys greet him in Korean and Dongyoung stage-whispers for them to say it in Chinese. “See you tomorrow.”

He watches them walk away for a moment, his ears picking up on Chenle asking if they can get donuts and Dongyoung making them promise to finish all of what he makes for dinner. Kun sighs a little to himself. They’re a cute family.

Chittaphon is already nursing a glass of wine when Kun steps into the tiny, hole in the wall Italian restaurant they visit way too much and finds his way through the dim lighting to their booth. He slides his phone out of his pocket and places it into the table before scooting into the booth beside Sicheng who looks like he hasn't been listening to anything Chittaphon has been saying. 

"Hey," Kun greets. 

Chittaphon breaks his story about something that happened at his job to toss up a hand in a flippant wave. "You're late."

Snorting, Kun slides over the menu open in the center of the table. "Hardly."

He stayed a little longer after his end time at the kindergarten, wanting to get his preparations for the next few weeks done. It's still the middle of October, but in the winter they'll have a Christmas party that he'll be in charge of organizing and he wants to get ahead and finalize his plans. Even after that, and running home to change his clothes, he's still only fifteen minutes late. 

"It's not like you've missed anything," says Sicheng, finally looking up from his phone. He darkens the screen and places the device face down on the table. 

Kun scans over the menu, looking over the pizza options because he's not in the mood for pasta. 

"You don't even know what I've been talking about," Ten accuses. 

"Precisely."

Glancing up from the menu, Kun flags down a waiter. "Alright, children, settle down," he says blandly. 

They order one dish each with the understanding that everything in the table but the drinks are communal. Kun asks for an overpriced glass of white wine and Sicheng, disinterested in alcohol, orders an espresso. 

As they wait for the food to be brought out, Chittaphon gets back into his gushing about how the hot secretary, apparently named Yukhei, ends all of his inter-office emails with a unicode smiley face after his signature. 

"It's completely unprofessional and I don't actually know anyone who still uses unicode symbols, but at the same time, it's so cute?" Ten says like he doesn't understand how he could possibly think such a thing. 

Kun rolls his eyes over the top of his glass. He notices Sicheng looking at him and smiles. “How was work?”

“Much of the same,” answers Sicheng, never one to be too enthusiastic about his job as a copy editor for a China-based newspaper. “Incompetent coworkers, racist department heads, shitty coffee in the staff lounge.”

“Are you really going to ignore me and start your own conversation while I’m still talking?” Chittaphon scoffs.

“You’re gushing over a man who uses the elderly version of emojis in his work emails,” Sicheng says in a bland tone. “This restaurant is too nice for such low standards.”

“Did you miss the part where I told you about how he could probably crush me between his thighs a few days ago?”

Sicheng takes a meaningful sip of his espresso and looks at Kun again. “What’s up at the kindergarten?”

“Much of the same,” Kun mimics. “Cleaning bodily fluids off the floor, dealing with passive-aggressive parents, trying not to trip over toys.” He turns over his phone to idly check the time. “Two new boys joined my class and their dad seems…nice.”

Sicheng groans. “The boy talk never stops.”

Reaching for his glass next, Kun pauses with the tips of his fingers brushing the side. He gives Sicheng a raised eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You think he’s cute,” Chittaphon says.

Kun directs the raised brow at his other friend too. “Don’t word it like that; it sounds juvenile. Also, I said nothing like that.”

“No, but you bit your lip when you paused to think of how to describe him,” Sicheng explains. “That ‘oh god, I don’t have the intelligence to properly talk about this person without thinking about how attractive they are, what do I do’ kind of lip bite.”

Kun balks. “I _do not_ do that.”

Sicheng scoffs. “You absolutely _do_ do that.”

“So, what’s Daddy look like?” Ten asks.

Glaring at him out of the corner of his eye, Kun picks up his wine glass to take a sip. He really doesn’t want to talk about Dongyoung with them because he never really likes acknowledging any attraction to the fathers he may have. After all, it’s not any of them are available.

Ten and Sicheng watch him impatiently, their eyes not straying away from his face until he puts the glass down with a sigh.

“He has a nice smile?”

Chittaphon rolls his wrist, motioning for him to continue. “And?”

“And I watch his children for a living so it’s whatever?”

Chittaphon scoffs, sinking back in his seat. “You’re no fun.”

”I’m sorry I don’t see the point in thinking about men who are unattainable.” Kun snorts.

Sicheng, for all his complaining, shrugs. “You never know what might happen. Maybe he’s not so unattainable.”

Waving their words away, Kun changes the subject and hopes it doesn’t come back up.

"Is this..." Kun reads and rereads over the paper just handed over to him, eyes always passing over the typed details about the fall picnic and straight down to the neatly penned _Kim Dongyoung_ at the bottom.

Not paying attention to the fact that Kun is talking to him, Dongyoung doesn't look over from where he's placing Jisung's bag that he'd been carrying for the boy beside the door. He waves his kids over and gives them both hi-fives. "I'll see you in the afternoon. Be good." Dongyoung stands up and offers a slight smile to Kun. "Sorry, Jisung was a bit of a pain to wake up and I'm running late."

Kun shakes his head. "It's fine." 

Nothing he's never experienced before. When some parents are running late, they don't even walk their children to the door; they drop them off at the curb. 

"Thank you. Have a nice day," Dongyoung says, waving once more to his boys before jogging away. 

Kun looks down at Jisung slowly changing his shoes and couches beside the boy. "Are you sleepy?" He pets the back of the boys head, smoothing down a stray strand of hair. 

Jisung shakes his head but his big eyes droop a little more than they did the day before. Behind Kun, Chenle finishes changing his shoes and squeezes into the door. Kun watches him go for a moment, just to make sure he hasn't forgotten where to put his bag.

When he looks at Jisung again, the boy has managed to put on both of his indoor shoes. He sits there, one of the sneakers he came in held in his hands and staring into space. 

Kun taps the boy's shoulder. "Jisung? You awake?"

Blinking, Jisung glances at Kun and nods. He looks down at his shoe and rolls onto his feet so he can go put it away in the shoe box. 

He hasn't known them long enough to tell if this is unusual behavior for Jisung or not, and Dongyoung didn't say anything about the boy feeling sick, but Kun makes a mental note to keep an eye on him anyway. The weather has been unpredictable and a lot of the children have been catching small colds. Jisung could also just be tired. It doesn't hurt it be watchful.

After Jisung puts away his shoes, Kun ushers him into the room and finally closes the door to Daisy class. 

Chengxiao runs up to him with a plastic bowl full of play food and a matching spoon. "Kun laoshi! I made you breakfast!" She grins down into the bowl of little plastic pizza slices, strawberries, and vanilla ice cream.

Crouching next to her, Kun takes the bowl with a grin and an over dramatic 'oh~'. "Thank you. It looks good." He spoons out one of the pizza slices. "But I don't know if pizza for breakfast is very good for you."

Laughing, Chengxiao shakes her head. "It's not pizza! It's porridge," she says like Kun is funny for not seeing the completely obvious. She takes the spoon out of his hand and brings it up to his mouth. "Eat it!" 

Kun pretends to take a bite. He hums appreciatively. "It's good! You're a wonderful chef, Miss Chengxiao."

Grinning like she's never heard a better compliment, she then refuses to let him go anywhere until he finishes all of the porridge. When he's full and a satisfied customer, she skips back off to where the rest of the play house toys are laid out on the floor. 

Taking advantage of being free, Kun moves to the front of the classroom. He asks the children to leave their contact notebooks in a rectangular basket he sits on a table every morning. Pulling up a tiny chair to the table, he takes out all of their notebooks and counts them. One of them is still missing, but he knows it's Jisung's. 

He grabs Chenle's yellow Minions notebook and flips it open to see if there's anything written. There's nothing, the pages just as empty as they were when it was first bought, and Kun flips the notebook closed again. He pushes it to the side and grabs Minhyung's notebook next as Jisung waddles up to the table. 

"Here you are, laoshi," he says, holding out his notebook - baby blue with Doraemon on the front.

"Thank you, Jisung," Kun replies in Mandarin. 

For the few days that they've been here, he's learned that they know some of the more basic things in Mandarin like greetings and please and thank you. He hasn't gotten around to asking Dongyoung how they've been taught, but he's heard the boys mention a 'Renjun' a few times so he assumes he might be a tutor.

Curling his hands in the long sleeves of his bright yellow shirt, Jisung mumbles back a shy 'you're welcome'. 

Kun smiles and places Jisung's notebook on the top of the stack. He looks down at Minhyung's and sees a note from his mother about how the boy had a slight fever the night before. As she dropped Minhyung off in the morning, she said his temperature was normal, and Kun hums to himself. Grabbing his stamp in the shape of a daisy, he presses it to the paper to the side of the note to show he's read it.

When he moves the notebook to the side and reaches for Jisung's, he acknowledges the boy still lingering by his side.

"What is it?" 

Jisung shakes his head, eyes focused on his notebook in Kun's hands. "What will you write?" 

"Hm?" Kun opens the notebook. Like Chenle's, the pages are still empty. "Now, I'm not going to write anything," he says, closing the notebook and putting it aside. "But if you get hurt or if I have to change your clothes, I'll write your dad a letter in the notebook. And you dad can write me letters too if something happens at your house."

"Oh! I wrote a letter to papa before!" Jisung says, tiny smile finally breaking on his face. 

Kun chuckles. "Yeah? What did you write?" 

"I love Papa!" He looks so happy, eyes turning to crescents. "And I did it by myself!" 

Kun fakes surprise that's real enough for Jisung. He quickly takes Yeji's notebook and checks it without breaking the flow of their conversation. "No way. All by yourself?"

Jisung nods. His ears turn pink as pride rushes through him. "Yes!" 

"Did you write it in Korean or Mandarin?" Kun moves Yeji's notebook and slides the next in front of him. 

Blinking, for a second Jisung looks taken aback by the question. "In Korean?" 

Propping his arms up on the table, Kun leans closer to Jisung. He waves him over, looking around suspiciously. Cupping a hand beside his mouth, he whispers, conspiratorially. "Then, next time, let's write your papa a letter in Mandarin, okay? He'll be so surprised." 

Jisung's little mouth rounds into a precious circle and he looks around like he's making sure no one heard too. He nods enthusiastically, practically oozing excitement. "Yes!" 

"But, you can't tell anybody. It's a secret, okay? A _secret_ ," he whispers, repeating himself in Chinese so the boy can pick up another word. 

Pressing a finger to his lips, Jisung nods again. "A...a secret," he says in Korean, giving up on the Chinese.

Kun hums and lifts a hand to lightly ruffle the boy's hair. "Exactly."

It takes about twenty minutes for the 'secret' about the letter to get back to Chenle who comes running up to Kun, saying he wants to write a letter too, and it only takes that long because Jisung stayed by his side, watching him check the notebooks and talking about going to the park with "Papa and Donghyuckie hyung' until Kun asked the children to clean up.

Leaning against the wall outside the open doors to the bathroom, Kun looks down at Chenle with raised eyebrows as he says that he's written his dad _two_ letters before. He places his hands on the boy’s shoulders and turns him around, gently pushing him in the direction of the sink so he can wash his hands.

"You can write a letter to your dad, too, Chenle. It's not a competition, you know."

Chenle tilts his head back to look at him, putting his tiny hands on top of Kun's. "Really?" His smile suddenly falls. "What's 'competition'?" 

Flipping his hands palm side up, Kun holds Chenle's hands. "It means: it doesn't matter who writes more letters."

"But Jisungie said it's a secret."

Kun hums. "Because you can't tell your dad. So, it's a secret."

"Oh." Chenle blinks, still arching his neck to look at Kun. His smile returns to his face almost tenfold. " _Oh_! Okay!" 

"Okay?" Kun squeezes the boy's hands before letting them go. "Next time, we'll write letters together with Jisung. Now, wash your hands."

At that rate, he expects the boys to tell their father about writing letters as soon as they see him that afternoon, but when Kun dismisses the children, they surprisingly don't mention it. Jisung talks about the tiny music lesson using hand bells they had today while Chenle chases Dejun around behind the parents.

"Did you play the bells well?" Dongyoung asks after Jisung's story, trying to lay down a wild strand of hair atop the boy's head. 

Jisung nods. "I did really well!"

He was zoning out for a majority of the lesson, but that's not something Kun needs to point out. When Dongyoung glances up and notices Kun's attention on them, the teacher smiles at him.

"Did you make it to work on time, Mr. Kim?" he asks, stepping closer and into conversation. 

Dongyoung heaves a dramatic sigh. "I made it through the doors right on time." He playfully pinches Jisung's cheek as if to say 'all because of this one'. 

Kun smiles as Jisung swats at Dongyoung's hand. "That's good. He was a little lethargic but once the day got started, he was wide awake." Speaking of the events of this morning, he remembers the permission form. "Actually, Mr. Kim... I wanted to talk to you about the fall picnic."

Dongyoung makes a small hum to show he's listening.

"On the returned form, you checked off that you would like to chaperone," Kun says, glancing down briefly at Jisung when he pulls away from Dongyoung to join his brother. "I just wanted to confirm that with you before we start the preparations."

"Yes, that's right." Dongyoung nods. "If it's about the time, it's fine. My clinic is very lenient compared to others so they allowed me to take the morning off." He glances over his shoulder at his boys and when he faces Kun again his eyes are impossibly warm. "It's their first event here and I think it'd be nice to be here with them. I also think it might be a good opportunity to get to know you a little better."

Kun knows he means in the context of being his children’s teacher but that doesn't mean Kun's stomach doesn't twist with nerves the slightest bit and, honestly, he's too old for that. He clears his throat and wipes his hands on the front of his jeans. "Yes, it would be. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a mistake. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened."

"I can imagine." Dongyoung smiles, open and friendly. "But this one, at least, wasn't a mistake." 

Unable to help himself, Kun returns the smile. "I'm glad," he says.

Dongyoung chuckles. "I think I should take my wild animals home." He looks for the boys again, calling their names and motioning for them to come over. "Hopefully all this running will make them sleep for a bit when we get home."

"Trying to finish up the last bit of unpacking?" 

Chenle latches onto Dongyoung's leg like a starfish to the side of a rock and Dongyoung begins to pet his head gently, not even missing a beat. "No, I have a movie that's been sitting in my Netflix queue that I want to watch in peace before my eldest gets home," he says with a laugh. "When all of them are around and awake, it's near impossible to really get into the story."

"I can imagine." And imagine Kun does. He thinks of Dongyoung cradling a mug of coffee under his chin, smiling over the rim as his twins try to get his attention and the fond way he'd shake his head when they finally distract themselves with something. He thinks of Dongyoung pressing play on the movie again only for his teenage son to come in the front door, noisy as most boys his age, and Dongyoung's little resigned sigh. It's a cute image. 

"Wish me luck." Dongyoung grins, crossing his fingers. He looks down at the twins and reaches out a hand for Jisung to take. "Let's go home. Say goodbye to laoshi."

Both boys latch onto their dad and wave excitedly, saying their goodbyes politely. 

Smiling softly, Kun waves back. "Listen to your father well at home, okay?" 

"We will!" 

"See you tomorrow," Kun says, looking from the boys to their father. 

Dongyoung bows his head in a subtle greeting. "Have a nice evening, laoshi."

Kun feels his stomach do that dumb teenage thing again and he swallows his bashfulness. "You, too."

Kun runs his hands through his hair for the fifth time in as many minutes, but he pretends it’s because he's worried about the picnic going smoothly and not because Dongyoung is standing on the other side of his classroom.

Scrubs aren’t the pinnacle of high fashion, but it's still a surprise to see him dressed casually in a thin, eggshell turtleneck and black jogging pants.

He forces his eyes to not return to the side of the room where Dongyoung is idly making conversation with Yeji's mother and busies himself with counting the children for the third time in last five minutes. His emergency bag is already packed and ready, sitting on the table pressing against the backs of his thighs. 

The assistant teacher for his and Taeil's classes, Joy - who bounces between their classes depending on which one of them needs the most help with the children at the time - peeks her head into the classroom. "Qian-seonsaengnim..." He looks over at her with a hum. "Moon-seonsaengnim says his class is ready."

He nods. "Thank you. Tell him Tulip can go first and we'll follow after." After Joy leaves to relay the message, Kun claps his hands and gains the attention of the class. "Okay, Daisy class, it's time to leave."

He pauses to let the children cheer and jump around before quieting them and opening his mouth to speak again. He goes over the rules of leaving the kindergarten - always hold a friend's hand, stay in a line, don't walk past the teachers, always stay where you can be seen, never talk to people you don't know - and then asks the children to line up in their usual two-line formation by the door. 

As they do as told, Kun looks at the three parents who offered to help his class. "Thank you so much for coming today. I'll be leading the children at the front so if I could have one of you in the back and the other two space out between the children, that would be great," he explains. "When we get to the park, we just need you to help make sure they don't stray too far."

That's not usually too big of a problem. Most of the kids are good about playing where they're allowed to, with the exception of a few troublemakers. Kun just hopes no one wets themselves before they make it back to the kindergarten. 

Turning around to get his emergency bag, Kun runs through his mental checklist one more time.

"Do you need help carrying anything?" 

Kun looks over his shoulder to see Dongyoung standing behind him, his usual smile painted on his face. He shakes his head, waving him off. "Oh, no. I can't make you carry something. It's fine."

Dongyoung shakes his head in turn. "I really don't mind. You look like you have a lot."

Between his emergency bag, the jump ropes and balls, and the children's lunchboxes, there is a bit to carry. They planned to bring the children and the play equipment to the park now, and then have the assistant teachers come back and get the lunchboxes. It's perhaps more complicated than necessary, but it's never been an issue before.

"What about the lunchboxes?" Dongyoung asks when Kun takes a second too long to respond. He's already reaching for the plastic storage bin they have the lunchboxes in, curling his hands around the sides. 

Kun wants to object further, but Dongyoung seems like he genuinely wants to help and so he allows him to carry the bin. It's less work for Joy, which he's sure she'll appreciate. "...Alright. If it's really not a problem."

Dongyoung laughs, the sound careful and polite. "The more you protest, the more you'll make me feel bad for trying to impress you by being helpful," he jokes. "Just accept it for both of our sakes."

A warm blush crawls up from Kun's chest into his neck, but he refuses to attempt to fan it away. He also refuses to push Dongyoung away with a light shove like he would a close friend, because there's a boundary that should be kept between them no matter how tempting it is to joke around with the father like that. 

So, he acquiesces and clears his throat as he moves past Dongyoung to pick up the play equipment from where he left it sitting on a shelf by the door. Taeil's class is already outside putting on their shoes and Kun pushes open the doors to allow his children to do so as well. 

Once everyone has changed their shoes and refilled into their lines, they set off for the park a few blocks away from the kindergarten. The walk over isn't so bad; the kids stay in their line for the most part, save for the ones who tend to walk in zigzags and end up slowing down the children trying to follow behind them. 

The park is a square of nicely kept green space. On the far side there's a playground, but only the older children of Irene and Fei's classes will go there. 

Kun picks a table under the cover of a few trees to sit their things down, Taeil choosing the one beside it.

"Where would you like me to put this?" Dongyoung asks, stopping beside Kun. 

"Anywhere on the table is fine.”

Kun turns to face his and Taeil’s children. He tells them it’s alright to play, once again reminding them of where they can and cannot go. They children scatter, immediately beginning to run around and chase each other.

His plan to watch the children for a moment before joining is quickly ruined when Dongyoung takes the ball Kun brought and tosses it between his hands. Jisung comes running over with Jaemin and Minhyung in tow and they all stare up at Dongyoung with wide eyes.

“Papa, let’s play soccer!” Jisung says, already reaching for the ball.

Dongyoung laughs as he hands it over. “Okay.”

Watching them, Kun smiles only to lean back in surprise when Jaemin skips over to him and latches onto his hand.

“Kun-seonsaengnim! You should play with us too.”

Jisung loves the idea, letting out a little gasp of excitement. “I want to be on Kun-laoshi’s team!”

“Hey!” Dongyoung reaches for Jisung and ruffles his hair. “What about me?”

Kun knows he’s making a mistake when he looks over at the affronted whine in Dongyoung’s voice, feeling his heart go soft when he catches the tiny pout to Dongyoung’s lips.

“Kun-laoshi is fast!” Jisung claims, still smiling wide.

Dongyoung gets his hands around the boy’s midsection, tickling him. “I’m your dad!”

“You can be on Minhyungie’s team!” Jisung says in between his giggles.

Breaking out into a laugh of his own, Kun picks up the ball when Jisung squirms too much to keep a hold on it. “How about we play two games? You can be on a team with me first and then play with your dad.”

Agreeing to the idea, Jisung makes grabby hands for the ball again and runs off with it when he gets it. Kun looks over at Dongyoung who is still frowning in the direction of his son, arms crossed over his chest.

He breaks his vow to not be too casual with the parents and nudges the other man with his elbow. Having that pout directed at him breaks his heart and puts it right back together again. “I’ll run slower so it looks like you’re faster than me.”

Unable to help a snort and a tiny smile, Dongyoung rolls his eyes. “Oh, hush.”

“Kun-laoshi! Kun-laoshi!”

The teacher looks over in search of the voice, recognizing it as Yang Yang.

He and Taeil have just finished handing out the lunchboxes to their groups and now everyone is seated on a large, thin mat. Yang Yang is sitting close to the edge, a tiny roll of kimbap in the hand he’s not waving around. Kun walks to the boy and crouches down beside him.

“Eat with us!”

Next to him is Guanheng who spoons a cut of carrot into his mouth as he nods. “Eat with us, laoshi!”

Smiling lightly, Kun motions for them to quiet down. “Okay, okay.” He grabs the small, cloth bag his own plain, black lunchbox is in and joins the boys who immediately begin to ask a million questions about what he’s eating, is it yummy, did his mom make it like theirs did?

“My mom doesn’t live in Korea. She’s still in China.” He laughs, reaching into his bag to take out his lunchbox and chopsticks.

Yang Yang’s mouth goes round. “Aren’t you lonely?”

Kun shakes his head. “Do you want to know why?”

“Why?” asks Guanheng.

“Because I have you little monsters to keep me company.”

As Yang Yang and Guanheng giggle over that joke, Kun feels something poke into his back and he looks over his shoulder at Chenle.

“What’s a ‘ _monster’_?” he asks in Mandarin, his pronunciation a little off.

“It’s _you_ ,” Kun replies, getting another scream out of Yangyang and Guanheng.

Yang Yang is the one to translate it into Korean for Chenle who immediately whines at Kun.

“I’m not a monster.”

“Oh yeah? But look at that frown,” Kun continues his teasing. “I’m scared.”

“No!”

Jisung, overhearing through his conversation with his dad, joins in. “Lele is a mango!”

Kun chuckles. “ _Monster_ , Jisung, not mango. Monster.”

While the boys laugh about mango monsters, Kun finally starts eating.

“Not exactly the kind of things I thought they’d be learning in Mandarin.”

Kun chokes on a mouthful of rice at the comment. He holds his chest as he glances at Dongyoung who is watching him with amused eyes, lips closed around a pair of disposable chopsticks.

Struggling to swallows, Kun coughs. There may have been a tiny laugh in there but it gets overshadowed by his minor inability to breathe. Once he can finally talk, he wipes at the corner of his mouth with a thumb and gives Dongyoung a smile.

“All valuable information, I assure you.”

Dongyoung takes his chopsticks out of his mouth to pick up a floret of broccoli. “I’m sure. I can’t take them to the grocery store without them trying to tell me every fruit or vegetable they know in Chinese.” He puts the broccoli in his mouth and covers his mouth as he continues, “But, I’m glad. When they were first brought into my home, I didn’t really think much of them being half-Chinese because I knew they’d be going back to their birth parents.

But when it was ruled that they couldn’t go back and I decided to adopt them, I got so worried about how I was going give them the heritage they might have had with their birth parents.” Dongyoung pokes at a roll of kimbap. “If their birth parents were capable of raising children, that is.”

Kun blinks, surprised by the story. “Oh, they’re adopted?”

Dongyoung hums. “My eldest is adopted as well,” he reveals. “I was a foster parent.”

“Wow,” Kun exhales. “That’s…admirable.”

Ears turning the softest shade of red, Dongyoung shrugs.

“If my opinion matters any, I think you’re doing a great job,” Kun says. “I don’t think many adoptive parents are so concerned with that. At least not so young.”

The red of Dongyoung’s ears moves into his cheeks and Kun would be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t happy about making it happen.

“I think…” Dongyoung glances up at the sky as he looks for what he wants to say. “I think I’d be really upset with myself if I waited until they were older and they either felt like I was hiding a part of them or they didn’t care. If they grow up and realize they don’t feel a connection to their heritage, that’s fine, but I want that to be something they work through themselves after having some sort of experience to make that decision with.”

All flushed a gentle pink and gaze far away and dark, Dongyoung is probably the most beautiful thing Kun has ever seen. He opens his mouth, but he can’t find any words that feel appropriate.

Dongyoung drops his chopsticks into his container of kimbap and rubs at the back of his neck, chuckle embarrassedly. “Sorry, that was a lot I didn’t need to say.”

“No,” Kun shakes his head and places down his own chopsticks, “I should thank you for telling me. You’re raising two very sweet boys and I think they’ll appreciate what you’re trying to do for them when they’re older,” he says. “I’ll also do my best for as long as they’re at the kindergarten.”

“Kun-laoshi. I have to go to the bathroom!”

Feeling as if the glass walls keeping him and Dongyoung in their small moment have suddenly shattered, Kun whips his head around to find Yeji looking at him with worried eyes. He immediately places the cover on his lunchbox and stands up, reaching a hand for the girl.

As he leads her off the mat, he glances back at Dongyoung and is surprised to find him still looking.

‘Thank you,’ Dongyoung mouths silently.

Kun shakes his head, hoping he doesn’t look as infatuated as he feels like he does, and looks down to help rush Yeji along.

"I think he's still a little tired," Dongyoung says as he drops off the boys a few weeks after the picnic, thumb rubbing circles in the back of one of Chenle's tiny hands. 

The weather has begun to chill as they reach the middle of November, and the entire Kim family is bundled up with light scarves. Jisung is already shoving his sneakers into one of the shoeboxes and waddling into the classroom, paying his father and brother no attention. 

Chenle tightens his hold on Dongyoung's hand and presses his forehead into his father's thigh. 

Crouching, Kun rests a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Do you want to come inside, Chenle?" 

The boy doesn't initially respond, but after a bit of coaxing releases his father's hand and sits on the veranda to take off his shoes. He moves sluggishly and after a minute or two of him spacing out, Dongyoung squats to help him. 

"I took his temperature this morning," he says, briefly glancing up at Kun as he pulls Chenle's right shoe off, "and it was fine. If it was Jisung, I'd be more certain that he's okay, but Chenle isn't usually like this..."

Smiling lightly, Kun nods. "I'll keep an eye on him."

Tiny sneakers in hand, Dongyoung stands and puts them on an open space in the shelf himself. "Thank you," he says, smiling gratefully. 

When faced with that smile, Kun feels like he's doing something great and not simply doing his job as a childcare worker. He mentally shakes himself out of it, willing away the warmth he can feel in his face. 

Dongyoung helps slip Chenle's indoor shoes on his feet and then cups the boy's cheek. "I'm going now, Lele" When Chenle bobs his head, Dongyoung leans in to press a kiss to his forehead. "Tell Kun-laoshi if you don't feel well, okay? Don't keep it to yourself."

Chenle nods again and rolls onto his feet. He reaches for Kun's hand and squeezes it. 

Jisung, holding a toy car, pokes his head out of the door. "Bye, papa."

Waving, Dongyoung smiles at his other son. "Bye, Sungie. Watch out for Chenle for me."

"Okay!" Jisung chirps and then disappears into the room again. 

"Bye, papa." Chenle holds tight onto Kun while he waves at his father with the other hand. 

Smile dropping into a concerned frown once more, Dongyoung looks at the boy. "Bye bye. I'll see you at three."

Kun calls Dongyoung at twelve forty-five, right after lunch. He looks down at Chenle, laying down on one of the sitting pillows from the reading area with a cold strip stuck to his forehead. 

After not eating much more than a few bites of rice during lunch, Kun took his temperature and wasn't exactly surprised to see the number come out as 37.7. Ever since Dongyoung dropped him off in the morning, his condition hasn't changed very much as he slowly went through the motions during craft time. 

“Hello?” comes Dongyoung’s voice over the speaker.

Kun leans against the wall as he regards Chenle, Joy keeping watch over the rest of his children as they look at picture books. “Good afternoon, Mr. Kim. This is Qian Kun from New Visions Kindergarten.”

“Oh, no,” Dongyoung says before Kun even has a chance to explain the situation. “He’s sick.”

Humming, Kun nods. “He has a fever.”

Dongyoung sighs.

“I know you’re in the middle of work, but would you be able to pick him up? If not, we can have him rest in the office.”

“No, no, I can pick him up. It’s fine. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thank you. Don't feel like you have to rush."

After hanging up, Kun returns to Chenle's side and lightly shakes the boy's shoulder. "Chenle, wake up."

It takes a few seconds for the boy to open his eyes and look at Kun with a watery gaze. 

"Hey there." Kun smiles softly as he slides his hands to Chenle's back and begins to rub up and down. "Your dad said he's going to come pick you up."

"Papa?"

"We have to go to the office to wait for him. Is that okay? You can take your pillow."

Nodding, Chenle slowly sits up. He doesn't move for a moment and then he drags the pillow into his lap. 

Kun usually goes soft when his kids are sick, but something about Chenle's wet eyes and flushed, round cheeks really makes Kun want to coddle him. Sighing fondly, he gently takes the pillow from Chenle. "Come here," he says, opening his arms. 

Getting the idea, Chenle scoots forward and wraps his arms around Kun's neck, planting his cheek against the man's shoulder as soon as he's lifted in the air. 

Usually he doesn't pick up the children, not unless he absolutely needs to for their safety or to avoid a mess, but he makes an exception this time. He walks over to where Joy is reading a book to a few children and gains her attention. 

"I'm going to take him to the office. I'll be right back."

She nods, casting a pitiful glance at Chenle before she continues reading. 

Amongst the group of children she's attracted, Jisung looks up with wide eyes. 

"Is Lele okay?" 

Kun gives him a reassuring smile. "He's okay. He doesn't feel well, though, so your dad is going to come and take you home."

Jisung's mouth goes round. "Me too?" 

“Yeah. You’ll go home too.”

“Oh…” Jisung mumbles, sounding a little sad.

“So, you have to be careful not to get sick too so you can come tomorrow.”

Jisung nods and turns around to listen in on Joy’s storytime again.

Kun takes Chenle to the office, the boy nodding off on his shoulder before he even makes it there. Victoria is sitting at the table, looking at something on her computer when they come in.

She looks up, face crumpling with sympathy when she spies Chenle in his arms.

"Aw, does he have a fever?" 

Kun nods. He sets the pillow on the corner of the meeting table and sets about pulling out the tiny cot they let the sick children rest on. It's a little hard to organize with just one available hand and Victoria notices, leaving her station to come help. 

"He's knocked out," she comments, a chuckle under her breath. 

Kun carefully lays the boy down on the cot and covers him with the blanket. Chenle hardly stirs to do more than whine and curl up on his side.

"He slept a little bit after lunch so he's probably still feeling it," Kun says as he steps back to gaze at the boy for a moment. "But that's for the best: for him to sleep it out."

"How's his brother?" 

"Completely fine. I figured I'd let him stay with the class until their father comes to get them."

Victoria hums in agreement. "I doubt he's going to be doing much of anything, but I'll watch over him so you can go back to your class."

"Thank you." Bowing at her, Kun gives Chenle another glance and then leaves the boy to rest. 

Dongyoung arrives nearly half an hour later and Kun meets him at the door with an armful of Chenle and Jisung at his side.

"Papa, Lele is sick!" Jisung helpfully informs their father who looks down at him with a sad, little frown. 

"I know. That's why we're going to go home now." Dongyoung glances at Chenle in Kun's arms for a second before looking at the teacher. "Hey. Sorry for the trouble today. I probably should have just kept him home."

Kun shakes his head. "If he wasn't showing symptoms at home, then it's understandable that you thought he was okay." He tells Dongyoung what they did that day, and Chenle's general mood throughout. "He's been sleeping on and off since I let him lay down after lunch."

Stepping closer, Dongyoung brushes his fingers across Chenle's cheek. "Hey, sweetheart. Are you feeling bad?"

Chenle makes a pitiful sound, nodding and tightening his arms around Kun's neck. "My head hurts."

For the first time, Kun wishes Chenle wasn't so comfortable in his hold, because now he's forced to stare at Dongyoung and count all of his eyelashes as he talks to his son.

Dongyoung coos, mouth rounding into something close to a pout and Kun can't help his attention from being drawn there too. It's not like being physically closer to Dongyoung than he's ever been so far is making him realize just how ethereal the man is, but it's definitely making it harder for him to ignore it. 

Which means he should definitely direct his eyes away from Dongyoung's mouth, although it is quite nice to watch the way his lips form words. 

"Sorry, I'll take him."

It takes Kun an extra second and for Dongyoung to hold his arms open for him to snap out of it and connect the words spoken to him to their meaning. He transfers Chenle to the other man, wiping sweaty palms on the front of his jeans as soon as his hands are free.

"Let's get you home, okay?" Dongyoung says to Chenle, sifting light fingers through his hair.

Kun picks up Chenle's bag from the floor. "Are you going to be alright to make it to the station?" 

Dongyoung hums and glances toward the door. "I took a taxi here. It's still waiting outside actually."

"Oh, then let me help you," Kun says as if he has time to waste and not a class of fourteen other children waiting for him. 

Keeping his hold on Chenle's bag, he pushes open the door for them and walks with them to the taxi. He helps buckle Jisung into the seat as Dongyoung handles Chenle. Once they're settled, Dongyoung looks up at him with a grateful smile. 

"Thank you."

Kun shakes his head, brushing him off. He ducks down to catch the boy's attention. "Bye, Jisung. Feel better, Chenle."

"Bye, Kun-laoshi!" Jisung waves frantically. 

Chenle gives a little wave and quiet goodbye of his own too. 

Kun looks to Dongyoung next. "Get home safely," he says and finally hands over Chenle's bag. 

"You're so sweet." Dongyoung puts it on the floor, never looking away from Kun. "Goodbye, laoshi."

Kun swallows down a few butterflies. "Goodbye."

Dongyoung shuts the door of the taxi, giving him a tiny wave and mouthing another goodbye before the taxi takes off. 

Kun enters the kindergarten and stops in the middle of the front hallway. He scrubs his hands over his face, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. 

"God, I'm whipped."

"New Visions Kindergarten. This is Qian Kun."

The phone rings early the morning Kun can barely keep his eyes open. He mindlessly glances at the clock as he holds the phone to his ear. He has maybe another fifteen minutes to eat breakfast and try to look less dead on his feet before the work day really starts. 

"Oh, good morning. I wasn't sure if anyone would actually be there this early."

Kun stands up straighter at the voice on the line, deeper than what he's used to and rough. "Mr. Kim, good morning. You're in luck because I like to arrive early," he says. "What do you need?" 

"I'm sorry for the short notice, as well as the trouble. I've been feeling under the weather these past few days so I'm visiting a doctor today," he says. "But my appointment time is rather close to the time I need to get the boys so I may be a quite late in picking them up. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience."

Kun can tell Dongyoung moves away from the phone when he coughs, the sound muted compared to his speech. He, admittedly, doesn't sound very good. 

"It's not a problem at all, Mr. Kim."

"I would ask someone to come get them for me, but they wouldn't be family."

And they're understandably a little wary about letting the kids go with non-family members, especially when no one at the kindergarten has met them before to confirm who they are.

Pulling out one of the chairs lining the table, Kun takes a seat and leans against the surface. "We won't mind you being a little late." A horrible thought flashes through his mind and it slips out of his mouth before he can get a hold on it. "If it's too stressful for you, I can send the boys home for you."

The break of silence immediately after the words leave his lips has a cold sweat breaking out along Kun's forehead. "Sorry, that was-" 

"Excuse me," Dongyoung gasps out a second before bursting into a coughing fit. 

Kun wants to pat his back and make him a nice mug of honey lemon tea. 

Once he gathers himself, Dongyoung apologizes again. "I knew I couldn't hold it in, but I thought I'd try." Even sick, his laugh still is sweet. "Are...are you sure that'd be okay?" 

No, but now that he's put it out there, he can't take it back without making it glaringly obvious that he's breeching some sort of child care worker's code of conduct. 

Kun clears his throat. "Uh, yeah, why not?"

A couple reasons come to mind, but he decides to worry about them later when Dongyoung unexpectedly agrees. 

"If it really won't be too much trouble? I just- if I can honest with you- feel like shit and as selfish as it is, it would be nice to not have to rush."

"No, I understand you. Take your time. I really don't mind."

 _Because you have a huge schoolboy crush on Daddy and want to impress him_ , a voice that sounds suspiciously like Chittaphon says in Kun's head.

But Dongyoung sighs something that sounds like gratefulness mixed with relief and Kun doesn't feel quite as hopeless. 

"You're honestly an angel,” he compliments. “Do you mind if I ask for your number? For the pass code?”

Kun shakes his head. “No, of course not.”

He recites his phone number with his heart beating fast in his throat. Dongyoung promises to send him a message with the code and also reassures him that he’ll be on time to drop the twins off.

After they hang up and Kun spends the next five minutes staring at his phone, waiting for the message from Dongyoung, he realizes that Dongyoung could have easily told him the pass code in person when he arrives with the kids. But, complaining about having his number – even if he’ll probably never be able to think up a reason to use it – isn’t something that he’s going to do.

Telling Victoria that he’s taking two of his children home in place of their father (and potentially risking his credibility at work) is not exactly something Kun feels comfortable doing, so he only tells her that he has an emergency to take care of and requests to leave after dismissal. It’s disingenuous, but the alternative is revealing his inability to make good decisions when a man who quite possibly put the starts in the night sky is involved.

“Laoshi, where’s Papa?” Chenle asks after all of the children from his class have been dismissed and the grounds are empty. “Jisung, stop it.”

They’re still in the room for Daisy class, Kun having asked them to sit and read for a moment.

Quickly checking his preparations for the next day, Kun spares a second to glance over at them. Chenle has a book in his lap that Jisung keeps trying to close.

“Jisung,” Kun calls in a warning tone.

The younger of the two twins shoves his hands into his lap with a pout.

“Your dad is at the doctor’s office so I’m going to take you home today.”

Chenle tosses the book to the side and rolls onto his feet, running over to Kun. “You’re going to come to our house?”

Jisung runs up too. “Papa said there’d be a surprise when it’s time to go home.”

Kun remembers, because he was outside when Dongyoung, all wrapped up in a thick sweater and covering his mouth with a mask, told them the half-lie. He throws his hands up in the air with a fake gasp. “Surprise!”

Excited, the twins grapple onto his hoodie and giggle.

“We have lots of toys!” Chenle says.

“And snacks,” Jisung adds. “You can have some of our snacks!”

Chuckling, Kun pats them on the head. “Thank you. Now, get your bags so we can go.”

They boys rush to follow his instructions, putting away the books they were reading and grabbing their bags. As they walk through the hall, the twins engrossed in telling him about literally every toy they own, they only run into Taeil who only asks if Dongyoung is running late as he passes by them on the way to Tulip.

Once they’re outside and a few meters away from the kindergarten, Kun looks down at the boys.

“Hey, why don’t we pick up something yummy for your dad to eat?

The apartment building the Kim family lives in is nice - five stories tall with a nice cream exterior and a few ceiling-to-floor windows to showcase the entrance lobby. Jisung and Chenle point out everything their eyes land on, from where their mailbox is located in the wall of silver boxes to the particular floor tile where they saw a ladybug a few days ago.

Kun oohs and ahhs as he ushers them into the elevator, one hand digging his phone out of his pocket and the other balancing a bag of hot take-out. 

“I can push the button!” Chenle says as he runs inside of the cab. He jabs his little finger into the button labeled with the number three and it glows a dull yellow.

"When we go inside, we can show you our toys. And then you can see Donghyuck hyung. He said we can watch Toy Story so you can watch with us!" 

Jisung's rambling honestly goes in one ear and straight back out as Kun opens his messages to find the one from the ID 'i'm getting fired yolo'. It's a straightforward text. 

_Hi, this is Kim Dongyoung._

_Thank you so much for doing this for me._

_Our address should be on file so I'll just tell you the code: 9298*_

_I still can't believe you're such a sweetheart_ _😞_

_Have a nice day._

Kun might have (or might not have, depending on how desperate he is to lie to himself at any given moment) read the forth line over and over again before remembering the code is the actual important thing to take away from the message. 

"Mhm," he mumbles absentmindedly. "That sounds nice."

Once they're standing outside of apartment 305, the gleaming keypad staring up at Kun, he suddenly feels like he's about to trespass in a forbidden zone.

"Kun-laoshi, are you sleeping?"

Chenle giggles. "Maybe he's sleeping."

Sucking in a deep breath, Kun steels himself and punches in the code to the door. The butterflies in his gut twirls around when the keypad beeps a positive sound and he can hear the lock shifting. 

Sweaty palm on the knob, he pushes open the door and lets the boys in. 

The interior of the apartment is both more minamilstic than he imagined but also exactly what he expected. Everything is in warm, earth tones of creams and browns and deep greens. For a house with three children, there's hardly a thing out of place and yet it doesn't look sterile and unlived in. There's coloring books on the coffee table and a Cars blanket folded neatly over the back of the tan couch. There's family pictures lining the sides of the television stand and a keyboard tucked into the corner by the door to the balcony. From the open curtains, Kun can see potted plants hanging outside.

"Papa?" Jisung calls after he's taken his shoes off and pushed them to the side of the entryway, out of the way. 

No one answers. 

"I don't think he's home yet." Kun slips off his own sneakers and steps into the apartment. "Can you show me where the kitchen is?"

"Yeah! And we can show you the snacks."

Kun laughs as he follows the two boys who run off hand in hand. "Let's wait for your dad to get home before we talk about snacks."

After sitting the food on the counter in the kitchen, sending Dongyoung a text to say they arrived safely at the apartment, and then being led all over the place in an impromptu tour led by the boy's, they all find themselves in the living room again. Jisung has crawled his way into Kun's lap to watch the cartoon playing on the television and Chenle is sitting on the floor, hunched over the table and furiously coloring a picture of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. 

Suddenly, the door beeps and listens as it's pushed open and someone enters.

Jisung hears it too, shifting in Kun's lap so that he's facing the door. "Papa?"

Instead of Dongyoung walking into the living room with his bad cough and his sweet words of gratitude, in saunters a gangly boy with his nose against a phone screen and the blazer to a school uniform all but falling off his shoulders.

“Donghyuckie-hyung!” Jisung shouts happily, waving an excited hand even though the teen isn’t looking.

“Hey, Jellybean,” Donghyuck mumbles, looking up from his phone with a crooked smile that quickly turns to a frown when his eyes land on Kun.

Jisung’s screaming about how he’s not a jellybean goes unheard.

“Uh…hello.” Kun waves awkwardly.

Donghyuck’s phone clicks when he presses the button to hibernate it. He blinks. “…Hi?”

Chenle, bless his heart, points as Kun. “Papa is sick so Kun-laoshi took us home from kindergarten!”

“O…kay.” Donghyuck’s eyes shift around the room. “So, is my dad here?”

“No, he’s- he went to the doctor but I think he should be back soon. I’d imagine he’d let you know.”

The teen looks at his phone. “Yeah,” he drawls. “I assumed he was asking what I wanted from dinner so I didn’t read the text.”

Although, Kun isn’t sure if Donghyuck actually reading the text beforehand would eliminate any of the awkwardness that they’re both feeling at that moment.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Kun says, trying out a smile that he hopes doesn’t look weird. Donghyuck’s odd expression doesn’t give him any hints of if he’s succeeding or not.

“Donghyuckie-hyung! Look at my drawing!” Chenle says, completely unaffected by the atmosphere. He holds up his coloring book with the picture facing himself.

Donghyuck’s lips turn up in a smile as he snorts. “Just a minute, Le. I’m gonna change my clothes.”

Kun watches as the teen disappears down the hall. Once again, he’s reminded of how his possible – definite – crush on Dongyoung is leading to him doing things he knows he shouldn’t. He’s been introduced to another piece of Dongyoung’s private life that he shouldn’t be in the form of his eldest son who Kun probably would have never met if he didn’t decide to _go to Dongyoung’s house_.

Jisung pulls him out of his thoughts, trying to talk to him about the cartoon. He listens to the boy giggle over the bad guy getting stuck in a trap and tries not to look so out of place when Donghyuck comes back into the living room in a graphic tee and track pants.

Chenle all but hops on him, shoving his coloring book toward his older brother. “Look, look!”

Sitting beside the boy, Donghyuck takes the coloring book and makes a show of appraising the picture like it’s fine art. “Amazing. Wonderful. Beautiful,” he says, grinning down at Chenle who beams at the compliments.

“It’s Disneyland! So, I drew you, Papa, and Sungie and me meeting Micky.” Chenle pulls the coloring book down so he can point at the egg people he’s drawn. “See!”

Donghyuck hums and ruffles his hair. “It’s great, Le.” Once Chenle picks up his crayons to continue coloring, Donghyuck turns his back to the table and looks up at Kun. “So, you’re their kindergarten teacher?”

Kun nods.

“Do you usually offer to babysit the kids you teach?”

The sudden question punches Kun straight in the chest and he clears his throat roughly. "Um… It's really for the benefit of the boys to not be stuck at the school waiting."

Donghyuck minutely raises an eyebrow. He has the look of someone who knows more than they should. "Mhm, right. Honestly," he slaps a hand on the table to stop one of Chenle's crayons from rolling away, "I'm more surprised about this knowing my dad, but he does only talk nice about you."

It takes a Herculean amount of strength for Kun to not ask 'so he talks about me?' like a lovesick character from a romcom and make why he's in this situation any more obvious. "I'm glad to hear that."

"That he talks about you?"

"That I'm doing my job well," Kun emphasizes, warm from his cheeks to his neck.

Donghyuck snickers like the little teenage brat that he is. "You're funny. I like you."

"Why do I get the feeling that you're laughing at me and not with me?"

Shrugging, Donghyuck rolls onto his feet. "I don't know. Maybe the question is why you feel like you can't laugh along with something funny. Do you want some water? I feel like you've just been sitting there this whole time and if Dad let you in, then you should make yourself at home."

Kun gets the idea that he'll always have a feeling of whiplash talking to Donghyuck. He's got a strong personality; that's for sure. "Yeah, sure, thanks."

Donghyuck shuffles into the kitchen behind them and when he returns with two glasses, Chenle decides he's tired of coloring and asks if they can watch Toy Story. That's how Dongyoung finds them when he arrives home fifteen minutes later, the twins both sitting on the floor a safe distance away from the television and Donghyuck trying to slyly get Kun to tell him the answers to his Mandarin homework.

"You just corrected Jisung a second ago when he said 'toys' wrong and now you won't tell me what this question means," Donghyuck complains under his breath, so as not to be too loud for the twins.

Kun makes a face. "Jisung tried. You looked at the paper once and decided you don't know it."

"Because I _don't_ \--"

"Hi?"

Taken by surprise, Kun turns to look toward the entryway with a gasp. Dongyoung stands there in a blue sweater, dark jeans, and colorful striped socks, holding a bag from the pharmacy. The mask covering his mouth doesn't hide the slight amusement in his expression.

"Mr. Kim!"

"I'm home?" Dongyoung says, walking up to put his medicine on the coffee table. He meets the twins who grin broad and jump up to hug his legs.

"Papa!" Jisung buries his face in his father's stomach.

"You're slow!" Chenle says, earning his ear a fake pinch.

"Hey, Mr. Kim." Donghyuck waves with a wide grin.

Dongyoung ignores his eldest son's greeting, looking toward Kun who quickly stands up. "Thank you so much and I'm sorry. Naturally, my appointment took longer than it was supposed to. I'm sure you didn't plan to be here so long."

"You could have left after I came, to be honest," Donghyuck comments, watching the both of them.

Dongyoung gives him a look that makes him press his lips together and glance at his homework again. "I'm sure the twins weren't anything more than you're used to, so I hope he wasn't terrorizing you too much."

Kun shakes his head, thinks of the mini interrogation Donghyuck gave him. "I didn't know he was studying Mandarin too."

Dongyoung looks at the teen again. "He said he wanted to try to give his brothers someone to look up to," he explains. "And he thought it'd be an easy pass since his boyfriend is Chinese, but I think you saw how great that's going for him."

"Renjun is gonna crack at some point. It's only a matter of time."

So, Renjun is Donghyuck's boyfriend and not a tutor. Also, Donghyuck's has a boyfriend. Kun stores that information for later.

Hiding a cough in the corner of his arm, Dongyoung then only shakes his head in exasperation.

"In the meantime, help a kid out, laoshi." Donghyuck waves Kun back over.

"Uh…I- actually, maybe it would be best if I went home now. Your dad is home now and he's sick so I should go so he can rest."

As if to prove his point, Dongyoung breaks into a coughing fit.

Donghyuck's picks up his half full glass of water and holds it up for his dad to take.

Once the attack has settled down, Dongyoung nods. "That's right."

Jisung and Chenle whine.

"But we haven't finished Toy Story!"

"And my homework isn't done!"

Dongyoung lifts his hands in a show of peace. "Maybe another day? When I'm not thirty going on dead?" He glances at Kun as if searching for an opinion.

"Yeah, of course. A-Any time." Kun says it way too fast but, thankfully, Dongyoung doesn't do anything but smile. He makes the mistake of looking over at Donghyuck who has a strange glint to his eyes and a sharp smirk.

He quickly gathers his phone and pats his pockets to make sure his house keys are still there. "I bought porridge," Kun tells Dongyoung. "I thought you'd be back earlier so it's probably gotten cool but it's in the kitchen."

Dongyoung's eyes round in surprise. "Oh, thank you. You didn't have to."

"Its nothing." Kun looks at the twins who stare up at him with miffed pouts, upset they won't finish the movie together. "Hey, don't look so upset. I'll see you tomorrow."

"You'll come tomorrow?" Jisung asks, suddenly excited.

That happiness comes crashing back down when Kun corrects him. "No, I won't come here tomorrow. But I'll see you at the kindergarten, right?"

"Oh."

"Can you come this weekend?" Chenle questions next.

Kun really shouldn't be coming back at all.

Dongyoung steps in. "We'll talk about it later." He reaches for Kun, brushing his fingers lightly along his forearm. "Come. I'll walk you to the front."

Even through his hoodie, the touch makes goosebumps raise along Kun's arm. He follows Dongyoung out of the apartment and to the elevator.

Dongyoung presses the call button.

"How do you feel? Do you have a fever?"

Dongyoung shakes his head. "Not anymore, but, you know, the usual. A cough, a sore throat, a lot of conjestion," he answers. "I know I caught it from Chenle so I just hope I don't spread it back to him or Jisung."

"Reheat the porridge, take your medicine, and lay down for a while."

"Mm," hums Dongyoung.

And it's nothing, absolutely nothing, but the sound still makes a warmth coat the insides of his chest.

The elevator arrives with a ding and Dongyoung motions for Kun to enter ahead of him. He presses the button for the ground floor and leans against the wall of the elevator, closing his eyes.

"You should have stayed inside, Mr. Kim."

Dongyoung opens his eyes to look at Kun. "You don't have to call me Mr. Kim, laoshi," he says instead of responding to what was said. "We can be friendly, can't we?"

Yes! Yes, we can! Kun thinks. "Of- Of course," he replies. "You don't have to call me laoshi either if we're not at the kindergarten either."

Kun misses how that implies he wouldn't mind seeing Dongyoung away from the kindergarten.

The doors open on the ground floor and Dongyoung leads them out. He walks Kun to the front door. They simply look at each for a moment before Kun realizes he should be saying goodbye.

"Then, rest well, Dongyoung. Take care of yourself."

He can't see the other man's smile but he can see his eyes turn up. "Thank you again, Kun. Get home safely."

November brings with it barren trees, chilly winds, and no respite to Kun’s slight infatuation. It also brings their monthly, mini birthday party for all of the children in the class born in a certain month. They play a bunch of games together, give the birthday children little party hats, and invite their parents to join the party up until lunch time.

In Daisy class there's only two children with birthdays in November, so after talking to Taeil, Kun decides to do the birthday celebration on their actual birthday instead of the date the kindergarten set.

"Happy birthday to me!" Chenle sings as Kun helps him get his party hat on straight.

"And me!" In the back, Jisung jumps around, his hat already secure on his head.

They don't do much to decorate the room for the party so the walls are only covered in the children's latest art project of paper collage trees, but Kun strung up the HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner in the front of the room. Bare minimum, but it's something.

"Yes, happy birthday to you,” Kun congratulates as he finishes with Chenle's hat. "You're old men now."

"No, we're not!" Jisung screams, laughing.

"You're already grandpas."

Chenle points at him. "No, you! Kun-laoshi is the old one because you're like papa and he's old."

"Hey! Don't drag me into this," Dongyoung complains from where he's been watching the entire exchange leaned up against the art supply lockers. "I didn't even say anything. Kun-laoshi should be the only old one."

"Excuse me?" Kun fakes an attitude.

Dongyoung laughs. "You started it, you finish it."

As the children giggle over their bickering, Kun and Dongyoung share a warm smile until Kun forces himself to look away, clearing his throat.

"Alright, everyone, let's clean up the toys and line up. We're gonna sing the birthday song to Chenle and Jisung."

After a bathroom break, the children of Daisy class are all lined up in the front of the classroom. Kun takes a seat behind his keyboard and turns it on.

"Can our birthday boys come to the front, please?"

Sharing a glance, Chenle and Jisung shuffle up to the front and turn to face their classmates, wiggling where they stand and grinning broad.

Kun plays the opening bit to the birthday and cues the children in to start singing. He glances at the twins from the corner of his eye, unable to help a smile at how positively ecstatic they are, squirming from all of the attention from their classmates. After the song, he stage whispers for everyone to say ‘happy birthday’ as he gets up from behind the keyboard and grabs the plastic Daiso microphone from inside the pencil holder sitting atop the instrument.

“Alright, everyone,” he calls for attention as he comes to stop beside Chenle. “Let’s do our birthday interview.” The rest of the children sit down and Kun angles the mic at Chenle who bounces on his toes as he looks up at Kun. “Hi, can you tell us your name?”

“I’m Kim Chenle!” he all but shouts, a giggle at the tip fo his tongue.

“And how old are you today, Chenle?’

“I’m four years old!”

“Very good. Everyone, clap your hands for Chenle.” Kun pets the boy’s head before moving on to his brother who has hands clasped together tight in front of his chest as he rocks from side to side. “It’s your turn. What’s your name?”

Jisung looks up at Kun with big, wide eyes and then at his friends shyly. “Kim Jisung,” he says in a small voice.

“How old are you turning today?”

Jisung shifts from foot to foot and lifts up a hand showcasing four fingers. Kun jiggles the mic in front of his nose and gives him an encouraging smile.

“Four.”

“Wow,” Kun feigns surprised. ”You’re already grandpas.”

“No.” Jisung looks up at him with a smile and cutely stomps his foot.

Kun turns to the rest of the class. “So, what questions should we ask our birthday boys?”

“What color do you like?”

“What’s your favorite story book?”

“Favorite toy! Favorite toy!”

“Do you like cats or sharks better?”

Everyone shouts at the same time, frantically waving their hands around. Kun hushes them quickly.

“How about we do favorite color?” Kun sends Jeno a look when he stands up to cheer over his question being picked and then turns his attention back to Jisung. “So, Jisung, please tell us. What color do you like?”

The boy looks around the classroom, playing with his fingers. “I like...green.”

“Oh, that’s a nice color. I like it too.” Kun rubs a soft hand between the boy’s shoulders and then turns back to Chenle. “How about you? What color do you like?”

“I like orange!” he says, unprompted, in Mandarin.

Kun blinks in surprise before he grins. “Oh, really?” He turns to face his class and spares at glance at Dongyoung. He, too, looks surprised, but there’s pride showing clear on his face. “Now, everybody listen. Do you remember who our special guest is today?”

“Chenle and Jisung’s daddy!” Multiple children shout.

Kun nods. “That’s right. And Chenle and Jisung have been learning Mandarin very well so I want to quiz their daddy on if he knows what color Chenle likes, okay? So you can’t tell him the answer.”

When he looks at Dongyoung again, the man is staring at him with the same wide eyes Jisung was giving him earlier.

“So, Mr. Kim? Do you know?”

Caught off guard, Dongyoung narrows his eyes at Kun ever so slightly. “Hm..” He lifts a hand to his chin, tapping it in a thinking gesture. “Is it...orange?”

Kun can’t even prank him and pretend that he got it wrong because all of the children cheer and tell him yes.

“ _I guess you’ve been studying, Mr. Kim. I’m proud_ ,” he continues in Mandarin and isn’t disappointed by the look of confusion on the other man’s face. Kun pats the twins on the shoulders and addresses Daisy class. “Everyone, let’s tell them ‘happy birthday’ again!”

“It’s not fair for you to speak to me in Mandarin and not tell me what you said.”

After another bathroom break, Kun lets the children play outside. Dongyoung sits beside him on the edge of the terrace as they change their shoes, the children already running around as they please.

Kun shoves his heel into one of his tennis shoes. He looks over at Dongyoung with an easygoing smile and shrugs. “ _Maybe. But it’s kind of fun_.”

“Kun.”

He laughs. It’s childish and silly and Kun has been feeling rather juvenile about his attraction towards Dongyoung but he likes that. Likes the idea that maybe a relationship that’s fun and makes you feel young isn’t something for people only in their twenties.

“Kun-laoshi!” Chenle runs up with Jeno and Minhyung in tow. Kun looks on with curious eyes as Chenle touches his shoulder and then scurries away. “Tag! You’re it.”

“Wait.” Kun watches them go. “Since when was I playing?”

Beside him, Dongyoung chuckles and Kun slowly turns to look at the other man, an idea entering his head. Dongyoung must be able to read his mind because his laughter peters out and he shakes his head, already beginning to shift away.

“No, Kun. You’re not making me run.”

”Mr. Kim.”

Despite his words, Dongyoung slides onto his feet and starts running.

And thus, starts a game of ‘Get Mr. Kim’ after Kun recruits Chenle, Jeno, and Minhyung to his team. Jisung and Jaemin join too, vowing to protect Mr. Kim.

While the children chase after one another, Kun goes after Dongyoung, gently asking for him to slow down and stop while the other man laughs and tells him to go away. He eventually catches up to him when Dongyoung slows down to avoid Yeji and Chengxiao chasing after a ball, slipping a hand around his wrist and tugging him to stop.

The shift in momentum makes Dongyoung stumble backward and Kun steadies him with a hand on his waist.

He turns to find the boys. “I got him!”

The three boys on Kun’s team cheer and behind them Jisung and Jaemin join in.

“Hey!” Dongyoung yells. “Jisung, you’re on my team! You’re not supposed to be happy I was caught.”

“But Papa, Kun-laoshi was so fast. He was like _shoom shoom_.” Jisung does a gesture that vaguely resembles speed skating.

Groaning, Dongyoung tilts his head back over his shoulder to look at Kun. It’s then that the teacher realizes how close they are, enough for him to feel Dongyoung’s soft exhales on his cheek.

“If you keep this up, you’re going to turn my children against me.”

Kun blinks slow, puts on a smile that he hopes doesn’t betray the way his heart beats steadily in his throat. “If _you keep this up, it’s going to be very hard for me to keep that I think you’re absolutely beautiful from being too obvious_.”

Dongyoung’s mouth turns down in a frown. “You’re doing it again.”

Releasing Dongyoung’s wrist, Kun takes a step back from the other man and puts an appropriate amount of space between them. “What? All I said was ‘I could never’.”

“That was a lot of words for ‘I could never.’”

Awkward smile smoothening out into something more genuine, Kun shrugs. “Practice some Mandarin and then figure out the rest.”

He gets a slap on the arm for that.

“Alright, Daisy Class,” Kun starts once they’re back inside and finished with another trip to the bathroom, “it’s time for Mr. Kim to leave so say thank you and goodbye.”

Chenle walks over, his personal water bottle held close to his chest with one hand, and tugs at Kun’s hoodie. “We’re going to have a party on Saturday too! It’s at KidsPlay!”

Kun nods, humming to show he’s listening. “Oh, the place with the jungle gym. That sounds fun.”

“And there’s a big bouncy room!” Chenle adds. “You should come, laoshi.”

The kids tended to make empty invitations like that and Kun only nods again and gently tells Chenle to finish getting ready for lunch. Having finished getting his things and saying goodbye to Jisung on the other side of the room, Dongyoung comes over and kisses the top of Chenle’s head before the boy goes back to his seat.

Kun tells everyone to prepare and sit quietly as he sends Dongyoung off and the children say their goodbyes before doing as they’re told. Kun opens the door to the terrace and lets Dongyoung slip outside ahead of him.

“Thank you for coming today. The boys looked like they had a lot of fun,” he says, watching Dongyoung change his shoes.

The other man shakes his head, glancing up for a quick moment with a smile. “Not at all. Thank you for inviting me, actually.”

A silence passes between them as Dongyoung pushes his feet into his sneakers and Kun takes the time to glance back into the classroom to make sure no one is running around.

“But, you know, speaking of the party,” Dongyoung says, sparing a glance at Kun as he shoves his indoor shoes into his shoulder bag, “the boys like you a lot, so I...wouldn’t mind if you came. I don’t know the parents of the children here very well so I’ve only invited kids from their old kindergarten, if you were interested.”

Surprised by the real invitation, Kun blinks. His mouth drops open, but he doesn’t quite know what to say. They’ve decided to be something like friends, but he wasn’t expecting anything like this.

Dongyoung run his tongue over his lips and chuckles awkwardly when the silence stretches on too long. “But you’re well within your limits to decline.”

“I’ll go,” Kun says. ”I adore the boys, so I’d be honored. If you really don’t mind me being there, that is.”

“I don’t,” Dongyoung answers with a smile. “It’ll be great to have you. The boys will be really happy. I’ll send you a message with the details and everything later?”

Kun nods. “Yeah...yeah, that sounds great.”

“Alright. Later, then.” Dongyoung adjusts his bag on his shoulder. He steps off the terrace and turns back to wave to Kun. “Have a nice day, Kun.”

Returning the wave, Kun nods again. “You too.”

“So, let me get this straight.”

In the time, Chittaphon takes to make a dramatic silence, Kun finishes chopping up the onions to lay around the marinated cut of salmon he already has sitting in a foil lined baking dish.

“Hot Daddy not only let you take his kids home and shared the code to their place with you, he also invited you to celebrate their birthday together?”

Kun scoops the onion into his palm and sprinkles it around the fish. “That would be correct.”

He came home and couldn’t get the invitation of his day off his mind. Needing someone to vent to, he called Chittaphon as he started to make dinner.

“Damn. And to think you thought you didn’t stand a chance.”

Shooting a glare at his phone lying on the counter as if his friend can see it, Kun picks up the pan and opens the oven door to slide it onto the middle rack. After closing it again, he moves to the sink to rinse his hands off.

“What are you talking about?” He sighs.

“I’m talking about how you’ve been pining over Hot Daddy when it looks like Hot Daddy might have been pining over Hot Teacher.”

Shutting off the water, Kun wipes his hands on the hand towel hanging from the handle of the cabinet below the sink. He returns to where his phone is lying and leans over the counter beside it on his elbows. “Listen, I get that he’s a literal father, but can you not call him ‘Hot Daddy’? It’s weird,” he says. “And there’s no way that’s it.”

”What do you mean ‘there’s no way’? What parent is actually interested in becoming friends with their kid’s teacher?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s just...outgoing like that.”

Chittaphon scoffs. “Oh, please. You’ve been doing things you would never normally do, right.” He leaves Kun enough time to hum. “Then, who is to say that he isn’t doing the same thing because he thinks you’re just as attractive as you do him?”

When Kun doesn’t respond, too preoccupied with not letting hope bud in his chest, Chittaphon continues.

“Kun, when have I ever been wrong?”

“Seo John, summer of 2017,” Kun answers immediately.

“Okay, whatever. I’m right this time and that’s all that matters.”

“Ten—“

“Give it a shot, man. What do you have to lose?”

His dignity.

His _job_.

Kun simply makes a dying animal noise instead of replying.

That Saturday finds Kun standing outside of the KidsPlay building with a Minions gift bag holding some interactive picture books that aren’t on the market yet in his hands. He reminds himself that this is fine, that he and Dongyoung are friends, and he isn’t overstepping any boundaries by being here as he enters the amusement center and searches for where Dongyoung said their party’s tables are.

The place is huge and filled with all kinds of playground equipment. He’s never been here before personally (because he doesn’t have kids and doesn’t have any close friends who do - or at least he didn’t), but he’s seen advertisements here and there. Honestly, there’s so much for the kids to do that he’d worry about one of them getting lost between the slides and the monkey bars.

“Kun-laoshi?!”

Stopping short, Kun turns around at the call of his name and spies Jisung breaking away from Donghyuck and running over to him. Jisung latches onto him, curving tiny hands around Kun’s thigh.

“Kun-laoshi, it’s you! Why are you here?”

Kun grins as he pets the boy’s head with his free hand. “I’m here for you and Chenle, silly.”

Jisung gapes at him, eyes twinkling. “You’re here for _us_?” He asks like he can’t believe it and Kun wonders if Dongyoung didn’t tell them he was coming.

The teacher nods. “Happy birthday! Again.” He lifts the gift bag for Jisung to see.

“Is that a present?”

“Of course.”

Jisung cheers and detaches himself to turn around. “Hyung, look! It’s Kun-laoshi!” he says to Donghyuck who finally manages to get close. “And he got me a present!”

“How cool, Jellybean. Let’s go find dad and tell him.” As he stretches out his hand for Jisung to take, Donghyuck nods his head at Kun and raises his eyebrows. “Interesting seeing you here.”

It’s a tease and Kun lets it roll off his back. There’s another teen standing beside Donghyuck who punches the eldest Kim son in the arm and he smiles politely at Kun.

“ _Don’t take anything he says to heart. He’s annoying but harmless_ ,” the boy says. “ _I’m Renjun._ “

Kun’s eyes widen at being spoken to in his native language before a small laugh escapes his lips. “ _Yeah, I’m starting to realize that._ “

Donghyuck elbows Renjun in the side. “I know you’re talking trash about me.”

“But you actually don’t, though.”

The two teens and Jisung guide him through the building, bickering and teasing each other the entire walk. Kun smiles as he watches them, remembering when he was that young. He wasn’t out at their age yet, but he remembers joking around and being stupid with friends and crushes like that.

They reach a set of two long tables covered in Toy Story tablecloths where Dongyoung and a few other adults are with five other children.

“Hey, Mr. Kim. We picked up another guy who wants to join the party.”

Dongyoung turns around from where he was talking with a man with sandy brown hair tucked under a lime green beanie and a pair of glasses with unnecessarily large rims, confusion clear on his face at Donghyuck’s words. “Excuse me— Oh! Kun, you made it.”

He immediately leaves his talking partner to greet him, holding out his hands to take the gift bag from Kun.

“Yeah. Thankfully, I ran into them on the way here because I’m pretty sure I would have never found you.”

“Papa! Where’s Lele? I have to tell him Kun-laoshi is here!” Jisung asks, running up to his father.

Dongyoung glances at his son as he turns to put the gift bag with the other presents. “He went to the bathroom with Uncle Jungwoo. He’ll be back soon.”

Pouting about how long that’s going to take, Jisung climbs into a chair at the table and is immediately distracted by one of his friends, a small girl, blowing bubbles from the bottle in her party favor bag.

Kun is just taking it all in until Dongyoung returns, grabbing his hand and leading him closer to the table.

“Don’t be awkward. You can sit down.” Dongyoung pulls out a chair and sits in it himself, sliding out the one next to it with his foot. “Donghyuck went to make the food order so when Chenle gets back, we’re going to do the presents and stuff.”

As if summoned by the call of his name, Donghyuck slides between them, reaching for a bottle of bubble soap to pretend he has some real reason to be in the way. “So, what brings you here, laoshi?”

“Kim Donghyuck.”

The boy looks at his father with a pout. “What? I can’t ask the man a question?”

“I’m here for Jisung and Chenle. Why else would I be here?” Kun answers, looking between the father and son duo.

Donghyuck raises his eyebrows and purses his lips as he unscrews the cap to the bubble soap. “Why, indeed.” He pulls out the wand and turns around to blow a few bubbles at Renjun who is looking down at his phone.

“I _will_ break up with you,” Renjun murmurs, wrinkling his nose as a bubble pops on the tip of it.

Grinning at his boyfriend, Donghyuck turns his attention back to Kun and Dongyoung, looking between them. He finally settles his eyes on his father. “Has anyone told you that you have a type?”

“I have. A couple times,” says the man with the lime green beanie from before from across the table.

Dongyoung settles him with a glare, even as pink floods his cheeks. It’s a pretty sight. “Taeyong, do _not_ encourage him.”

Taeyong smiles at Kun, offering him a hand. “Hi, I’m Lee Taeyong. Dongyoung’s best friend since high school.”

Kun takes the hand and introduces himself in kind. “I’m the twin’s kindergarten teacher.”

Taeyong whistles. “That’s scandalous for you, Doyo.”

“That’s what I said,” Donghyuck chimes in, dunking the bubble wand into the soap. “Like, dad, when I told you, that you should start dati—“

“Kun-laoshi?!” Chenle’s voice breaks through whatever Donghyuck was trying to say. The boy runs up to Kun much like Jisung. “Papa, Kun-laoshi is here?!”

Dongyoung laughs and stands up from his seat. “Yes, he is.” He moves down the table and picks up the Minions bag. “And since we’re going to open your presents now, why don’t we start with his first?”

One Friday, Kun bounces on his toes, trying to keep warm in his turtleneck and hoodie in the early December chill as all of the children follow their parents home. His mind drifts to the Christmas celebration they’ll be having in a few weeks and all of the preparations that he needs to do leading up until then.

“A little faster, Jisung. We have to catch the train.”

Blinking, Kun looks over to his left to see Jisung slipping off his shoes and Dongyoung standing in front of him, looking at his phone. He notices the extra bag Dongyoung has strapped to his back and raises a curious eyebrow.

“Are you going somewhere?”

Dongyoung looks over. “Me? No. But Taeyong offered to take the boys for the weekend so I can have an empty house since Donghyuck is staying with Renjun,” he answers.

“Uncle Taeyong is a baker. He always has a bunch of yummy sweets for us!” Chenle says from where he’s holding Dongyoung’s hand, already finished changing his shoes.

“Aw, I want some sweets too. But if you eat too many you’ll get cavities,” Kun says.

“I know!”

Kun turns his attention to Dongyoung. “Do you have any plans while they’re gone?”

“No.” The father tilts his head to the side in question. “Why? Would you like to do something?”

“What?”

A small smile tugs at the corner of Dongyoung’s lips. “Would you like to do something together?”

One of the wires in Kun’s brain short circuits. He can’t even begin to comprehend doing something with Dongyoung that isn’t also somehow related to the boys.

His silence makes the smile on Dongyoung’s face turn thin.

“If you don’t want to...”

“I want to!” Kun blurts out a little too loudly. Heat immediately floods his face and he averts his eyes to see a few curious mothers looking his way.

Dongyoung chuckles and to Kun’s stupid ears it sounds almost fond.

“Okay. Then let’s.”

Kun sucks in a breath and tries to calm his thundering heartbeat. “O-Okay. Do...do you want to maybe get dinner?”

“You want to come over for dinner?”

“No!” Kun holds up his hands. “I meant, like, at a restaurant or something.”

“I can cook, Kun. That’s not a problem.”

But it _is_.

“Papa, what about the train?” Chenle asks, tugging at Dongyoung’s hand.

Dongyoung gasps. “You’re right. We have to go.” He looks at Kun while he reaches out to take Jisung’s hand. “Come over tomorrow. Any time is okay. You can just let yourself in.”

Kun doesn’t even have time to reply before Dongyoung is saying goodbye and rushing away with the twins. He watches them until they leave the area of the kindergarten and then turns around to go back into his room, fanning his face.

He flinches when he catches sight of Taeil, still loitering outside his own classroom, looking at him with a raised brow and a smirk.

Well, looks like that secret is out.

What is someone supposed to do to get ready when they’re going to have dinner with a friend that they want to be more than a friend and who might possibly (not) want the same? Kun stands in front of his bathroom mirror with a tub of hair gel opened and sitting heavy in his hand, wondering if he should slick his hair back or leave it down.

He never bothers to do anything with hair for work, knowing that it’s likely the kids will put their hands in it and mess it up. Which means Dongyoung has never seen him with his hair up. _Which means_ Dongyoung might think he’s trying too hard to look good for their friendly dinner.

“You’re overthinking. You’re overthinking.” Kun grabs the cap to the hair gel and screws it on. Holding it, he checks out his reflection, looking over his outfit of a cream turtleneck tucked into black jeans held up by a simple belt. Causal. “You look fine.”

He puts it on the edge of the sink and leaves the bathroom before he can get caught up in indecisiveness again. He returns to his room and picks up his phone from off his bed.

The time reads a little bit after four. When he hears ‘dinner’, he thinks of a time close to six, but Dongyoung didn’t specify when he should be there by. And rather than be late, Kun figures he should take the other man’s words at face value and go now, even though it might be a little early.

So, he pockets his phone, finds his wallet and keys in the living room, and rushes out of his apartment before he can chicken out.

It feels a little weird to key in the passcode to the Kim’s apartment and push open the door himself, but that’s what Kun does when he arrives nearly an hour later. There’s smooth jazz music playing from what seems to be the kitchen. Toeing off his ankle boots and leaving them neat and off to the side, Kun follows the sound down the hall.

He hears Dongyoung before he sees him, the owner of the house singing along to the song playing. Poking his head into the kitchen, Kun watches Dongyoung stop what he’s doing at the stove to hold his chest as he sings a particularly emotional lyric.

God, he’s so adorable.

When Dongyoung returns to cooking, Kun slips into the kitchen and approaches the other man.

“What are you making?”

Nearly jumping out of his skin, Dongyoung lets out a curse and whips around, spoon poised like he’s ready to stab someone. “Kun, don’t-” He reaches out and lightly punches Kun’s chest with his free hand. “Goodness. You almost gave me a heart attack. Don’t sneak up on me.” He hits Kun again for good measure.

Kun takes it, laughing at the way Dongyoung turns up his nose and tries to catch his breath. “You said I could just come in.”

“Yes. I didn’t say scare me half to death.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

Dongyoung gives him a look and finally notices the bottle in Kun’s hand. “Oh, you brought wine.”

Glancing down at the bottle himself, Kun shrugs. “Yeah. I didn’t want to come empty-handed so...”

Taking the wine, Dongyoung looks it over. “You didn’t have to but it’s nice. I don’t think it’ll chill in time for dinner, but we can crack it open later maybe.” He walks the wine over to the refrigerator and puts it inside.

In his short absence, Kun takes his place in front of the stove. “So, what are you making?”

Huffing, Dongyoung puts a hand on his upper arm and pushes Kun out of the way. “Maybe I would have answered your question earlier if you didn’t try to kill me.”

Kun grins and pokes his fingers into Dongyoung’s sides. “That’s why I’m asking again.”

Shaking him off, Dongyoung clicks his tongue. “It’s spicy braised chicken,” he answers. “It’s cold out so I wanted to give you something that would warm you up.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Sit down and make yourself comfortable,” Dongyoung says. “I wouldn’t ask you to help in the first place, but, honestly, all this needs to do it sit for another fifteen minutes or so.”

“Are we going to eat at the table? I can put down plates-“

“Kun.” Dongyoung puts the spoon down on a chopstick rest and turns around to face him. He smiles. “Go into the living room and sit down, please. I’ll be there in a minute.”

What else can a man do but listen?

But instead of sitting down, Kun sits at the keyboard in the corner of the room. It’s a little dusty, but it’s plugged in, so Kun turns it on and presses down on a key experimentally. That’s where Dongyoung finds him when he walks in, flicking his finger over his phone.

The jazz song playing suddenly stops.

“Do you play aside from what you have to for work?” Dongyoung asks, stopping beside the keyboard.

Feeling like he wants to show off, to impress, Kun shrugs. “A little bit.” He shifts to the side of the small bench and pats the now open space beside him.

“There’s no way I can fit there.”

Kun rolls his eyes. “You have the smallest hips I’ve ever seen. You can fit.”

Dongyoung frowns but slides onto the bench next to him anyway. It is a tight squeeze, but it’s not uncomfortable. Dongyoung’s thigh is pressed up against Kun’s own and he can feel the warmth from the other man’s close proximity. Redness tints the tips of Kun’s ears but if he doesn’t bring attention to them, then maybe Dongyoung won’t notice.

Cleaning his throat, Kun positions his hands on the keys and begins playing the notes to the first song that comes to mind. He doesn’t play much — he can’t, not when Dongyoung leans more into his shoulder, almost like he’s laying his head on it. If anything, it’s a miracle Kun doesn’t completely fumble the chords before he quits with a nervous laugh.

“Wow,” Dongyoung exhales, looking at Kun with delight in his gaze. “You’re not bad.”

Kun nudges him with his elbow. “Why don’t you play something?”

“Because I don’t play,” he says. “My ex did, and he always tried to get Donghyuck to play. Hyuck never really took to it, but when Jaehyun broke the engagement and left, he didn’t take the keyboard with him and I never thought about it enough to get rid of it. Renjun likes to play when he comes over so it’s not a complete waste, I guess.”

Kun tries to think of something more intelligent than ‘oh’ to say but comes up empty. Donghyuck’s lack of subtlety made it kind of obvious that Dongyoung is interested in men, so that’s not much of a surprise, but he didn’t think that Dongyoung was ever engaged to be married.

“And now, you can play it too,” Dongyoung continues. “Maybe you should come over and play for me more often.”

“Since when was I playing _for_ you?”

Dongyoung lifts a shoulder in a half shrug. He raises a hand and presses down on a few keys with his index finger. “You asked me to sit, so obviously you’re playing for me.”

And, well, Kun can’t really argue with that logic.

Realizing he’s won that argument, Dongyoung looks up from the keyboard at Kun with a glimmer in his eyes that makes Kun’s heart skip a beat and pound like he’s run a ten kilometer marathon all at the same time. Kun can’t help it when his gaze drifts down to Dongyoung’s raspberry mouth, can’t help but try to roughly swallow down all of the butterflies tickling the inside of his throat.

That mouth curves into a smile and Kun drags his eyes up back to Dongyoung’s that still look like they’re glittering.

God, that was horribly obvious.

Dongyoung pats Kun’s knee twice, giving it a little squeeze the second time, and slides off the bench.

Kun watches him walk into the kitchen and wonders if any of that meant he would have said yes if Kun asked to kiss him.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Dongyoung. It’s, um, it’s Kun.”

On the other end of the line, Dongyoung chuckles. “Hi, Kun.”

Looking down at the slip of paper in his hand, Kun jiggles his leg restlessly against his sofa. “I know this is late notice, but I was wondering if you were busy this weekend,” he says. “I have these coupons for half off movie tickets but they expire on Monday. And I remembered how Jisung was telling me about how he hasn’t seen Frozen 2 yet, so I was thinking that maybe I could give you the coupons or something.”

Dongyoung hums. “Actually, we were supposed to go to buy a Christmas tree and stuff on Sunday.”

Kun stops bouncing his leg for a second, only to start back up again. “Oh.”

“Why are you saying it like that? I mean, we can go see the movie in the morning and then get the decorations afterward.”

“Oh. _Oh_! Yeah, you could do that.”

“Are you not going to join us?”

Kun blinks. “Can I?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” And as if to avoid Kun giving some excuse to explain why he thought he shouldn’t go with them, Dongyoung continues speaking. “We can go to a morning showing- like, eleven? Is that alright with you?”

Biting into his lip, Kun nods even though he can’t be seen. “Of course. Yeah, that sounds great,” he says. “The coupons are for CGV so I can just go to the theater closest to your place?”

“Okay.”

“...Okay, then I’ll—“

“How was your day?” Dongyoung suddenly continues. It takes Kun by surprise. “Aside from work.”

“It was alright,” Kun answers. “I just kind of came home and lazed around. Might order take out. It’s one of those nights.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“How about you?”

“It was fine. The twins got their sculpting clay stuck in the carpet earlier so I had to get that out, but now I think I’m going to try and watch a movie.”

“Oh? Which one?”

That gets Dongyoung talking about all of the movies in his ‘must watch later’ list, and then about the ones he’s seen recently. He makes a few recommendations to Kun, but not without adding in the condition that they must watch them together.

Kun laughs at that. “Why?”

“Because I want to see your reaction!” Dongyoung says like he thinks Kun is stupid for asking such an obvious question.

“I can just call or text you about it after I watch it.”

“I said I want to ‘ _see_ ’ it.”

Giving in, Kun chuckles again. “Alright, Dongyoung. Whatever you want.”

“Oh. That’s the hottest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Kun splutters.

Dongyoung laughs like he hasn’t done anything wrong, like he doesn’t have his whole hand wrapped around Kun’s weak heart.

“Hey, dad?” Kun hears distantly from the other side of the line.

“I’m being summoned.” Dongyoung sighs. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yeah, sure, later.” Kun’s voice cracks embarrassingly when he responds.

Dongyoung giggles. “You might want to drink some warm tea with honey.”

“You’re teasing me.”

“I am,” Dongyoung confirms plainly. “Goodnight, Kun.”

“...Goodnight, Dongyoung.” There’s something sickeningly sweet like an _I love you_ on the tip of his tongue but he traps it behind his teeth.

As much as he wants them to be, they’re not there yet.

Kun should have expected Donghyuck to show up to the movie theater with Dongyoung and the twins, but for some reason he didn’t. Don’t get him wrong, he likes the kid and thinks he has an interesting sense of humor; it’s just that it’s very apparent that Donghyuck lives to torture the people he cares about.

He starts by slinging an arm around Renjun’s shoulder when Kun poorly masks his surprise about him being there and says, ‘A little weird to be going on a double date with my dad and my little brothers, but I’ll take it as family bonding time.’

Dongyoung leaves Renjun to handle Donghyuck and leads the twins inside of the theater, Kun following behind them with their ears equally red.

“Goodness, that child,” Dongyoung mutters as they get in line. “No idea where he got that personality from.”

Kun rubs at the back of his neck, holding out a hand to steady Jisung when he stumbles over his feet. “I don’t know. We just sorted out last night that you’re a bit of a tease yourself.”

Dongyoung looks at him with an indignant glare. “That’s different.”

“How?”

Dongyoung opens his mouth but quickly closes it again, pushing his lips into a slight pout.

“Does this theater have those couple seats?” Donghyuck muses from behind them and Dongyoung turns around to look at the teens.

“You’re not sitting in couple seats.”

“I wasn’t asking for us,” Donghyuck says, tone bratty. “I was asking for you two. There’s nothing more romantic than spending two hours squeezed together with the boy you like, watching a children’s movie. Sharing a large popcorn and bumping hands every time you go for a bite to eat, glancing at him out of the corner of your eye and seeing the snowy, animated landscape reflected beautifully in his eyes.”

“You’re truly a poet,” Renjun deadpans.

Donghyuck tugs on their conjoined hands and does a cute little dance. “And that’s why you like me.” His aegyo quickly dies and is replaced by a blank look when he glances at his father and Kun again. “But, seriously, you can sit together and we’ll watch the twins in a different part of the theater. We’ve already seen the movie.”

Dongyoung sighs at his son. “Hyuck, we’re in our thirties. Frozen 2 is hardly the romantic date that you think it is.”

“So you admit this is a double date,” Donghyuck is quick to respond with, never one to miss even the slightest slip of tongue.

Kun’s heart pounds heavily as he watches Dongyoung’s cheeks flare up. He doesn’t know what pushes him to do it — maybe the echo of Chittaphon’s voice telling him that Dongyoung is interested in him playing over a mental powerpoint presentation of all of the evidence suggesting that to be true in his head — but he reaches out and slides a hand up Dongyoung’s back between his shoulders and then drags it down to settle on his waist.

Dongyoung looks at him with his eyes big and round.

Kun clears his throat. “The line is moving forward,” he says.

Behind them, Donghyuck boos.

Jisung and Chenle talking about nothing but the movie after they leave the theater and head to the store to get the Christmas decorations means that Donghyuck doesn’t have the time to play around. It isn’t until they’ve made it back to the Kim household with a fake tree, ornaments, and lights that Kun realizes he was beginning to take the silence for granted.

“Dad, let me take a picture of you right here. Renjun, get my phone.”

After they get the tree up and while Kun is helping to string the lights around it, Dongyoung pulls his dad away and to the other side of the living room.

“Here?” Dongyoung asks incredulously. “Why?”

Donghyuck ignores him, turning around and looking straight at Kun who was watching the exchange. “You, too. Come here.”

Kun wants to question why as well but thinks better of it, knowing it’s safer to let Donghyuck do whatever he wants within reason. And a simple picture doesn’t seem so bad so he takes his place next to Dongyoung.

Having received his phone from his boyfriend, Donghyuck taps away at it for a moment and then looks up at them with a frown. “You’re not going to pose or anything. Not even a peace sign or a thumbs up or a kiss or something?”

Kun chokes while Dongyoung asks. “Why would we kiss?”

Donghyuck shrugs. “I don’t know. Look up.”

Kun does just that and, of course... Right above their heads is a bit of mistletoe held up with a strip of tape.

“So, yeah, a kiss would be nice.”

Dongyoung crosses his arms over his chest and narrows his eyes at his son.

Donghyuck sighs. “Okay, or don’t. I’m taking the picture either way because I want a picture of you two together so can you not look so angry at me.”

Huffing, Dongyoung turns to Kun and although there’s a slight blush on his cheeks, there’s also an apology in his eyes. “Ignore him.”

He has that little, annoyed pout on his lips again and Kun finds himself unable to look anywhere else again, forgetting for a moment that they’re supposed to be taking a picture.

“If you guys aren’t going to smooch, can you at least look at the camera?”

Sucking in a deep breath through his nose, Kun starts to turn to the camera when Dongyoung groans and tosses his hands up.

“Fine.”

Dongyoung slides a hand along the line of Kun’s jaw and pulls him in until their mouths press soft and warm.

Kun doesn’t have a moment to think before he hears the shutter sound of the phone camera. He expects Dongyoung to pull away then, but instead he presses a little harder against Kun’s mouth, murmuring ‘you can touch me, you know’ against his lips. Realizing he had his hands hovering awkwardly in mid air, Kun gingerly places them on Dongyoung’s waist and sinks into the feeling of the kiss with a sigh that said ‘finally’.

The camera goes off a few more times as Donghyuck cheers obnoxiously.

“Okay, you win, Jun. I didn’t expect that plan to work.”

“I told you.”

Dongyoung pulls back to find Renjun in the living room, not even looking their way as he helps Jisung and Chenle hang bulbs on the Christmas tree.

“Renjun, thank you, but also you’re no longer allowed in this house.”

“Okay, Mr. Kim,” Renjun calls over his shoulder like he knows Dongyoung doesn’t mean it.

Dongyoung shakes his head. “These kids.” He looks at Kun as if looking for confirmation.

Kun can’t focus on anything other than how Dongyoung looks like he has the moon, the sun, and every other star in his eyes. “Yeah,” he exhales breathlessly, “but they’re yours.”

Dongyoung laughs and Kun really wants to kiss him again.

“You know, we’re still under the mistletoe...”

Snorting unattractively, Dongyoung slides his other hand around Kun’s upper arm. “Don’t use the mistletoe as an excuse and kiss me.”

“And then, when we were putting the balls on the Christmas tree, Kun-laoshi kissed Papa!”

“Is that so?”

Kun walks out of the bathroom after cleaning up Xiaojun’s mess after he missed the urinal to see Jisung talking to Taeil by the sinks. “Jisung!” he all but yells, face immediately filling with color.

The boy turns around, wide eyes filled with uncertainty over the loud call.

Taking a breath, Kun shakes his head. “J-Jisung, you can’t just tell people that. _It was supposed to be a secret_ ,” he finishes in Mandarin.

“Oh no!” Jisung’s bottom lips wobbles. “ _I’m sorry, laoshi._ I didn’t know it was a secret.” He turns to Taeil. “Taeil-seonsaengnim, Kun-laoshi says it’s a secret so you can’t tell anyone he kissed Papa, okay?”

Taeil nods and holds out his pinky finger to the boy. “I won’t tell anyone. It’s a promise.”

Jisung’s eyes light up and he links his pinky with Taeil. He turns around to look at Kun again. “It’s okay! Me and Taeil-seonsaengnim pinky promised!”

Kun watches his job security float away before his very eyes. “Jisung, go back into the room and get ready for lunch.”

He watches the boy skip into Daisy class and then slowly glances over at Taeil who’s grinning at him maddeningly.

“Please don’t.”

Taeil does. “You and Mr. Kim finally got together?”

Kun balks. “What do you mean by that?”

“Dude, you were never subtle.’

Groaning, Kun covers his face with his hands. All this time, he thought he was hiding it well and being professional at work but he probably just looked like a love struck idiot whenever Dongyoung was around.

Laughing, Taeil comes up and pats him on the shoulder good-naturedly. “I’m happy for you. I hope it lasts for a while.”

Kun digs his palms into his eyes until he sees fireworks on the back of his eyelids. “Thanks,” he sighs, pulling his hands away. “I do, too.”

“Happy almost birthday,” is the first thing Dongyoung says when Kun opens the door to his apartment on New Year’s Eve.

He spreads his arms wide and Kun walks into them, accepting the hug.

“Thank you.” He squeezes Dongyoung tight, dipping in to press a kiss below the lobe of his ear. He glances into the hallways of the building, noticing an absence of three others. “Where are the children?”

Dongyoung pulls out of the hug and gently pushes Kun back so they can enter the apartment. “Hyuck and his friends are having a New Years party at one of their houses and I asked Jungwoo if he could take the twins for the night," he explains, toeing off his shoes.

“Oh, really? Why?” Kun was expecting for the whole family to come and celebrate when Dongyoung invited himself over.

“Because I wanted you all to myself." Dongyoung hooks a finger in the collar of Kun’s shirt and gives it a tug. “Is that a problem?”

Kun quickly shakes his head.

“Good.” Dongyoung grins wide and happy and beautiful. “I thought maybe we could watch a movie and just relax until the new year.” he says, stripping off coat and hanging it on the rack Kun keeps by the door.

Kun won’t complain about a quiet night in with his boyfriend.

They quickly settle on the couch in the living room, Dongyoung commanding control of the smart tv and, by extension, Kun’s Netflix account. He flicks through the viewing lists Netflix has made for Kun, making comments about how right he was that they need to watch things together because Kun never seems to finish anything.

“I get sleepy sometimes,” Kun tries to defend, taking a pull off the can of beer he grabbed from the kitchen before they sat down.

Dongyoung finds a movie that he recognizes from his queue list and turns it on. “Well, you’re not allowed to fall asleep on me tonight.” He turns around and takes the beer from Kun, taking a sip of his own and then putting it on the floor instead of giving it back.

He curls up to Kun, all but tossing his legs over Kun’s.

Kun wraps an arm around Dongyoung’s shoulders and pulls him close. “You didn’t have to steal my beer.”

“Sorry.” Dongyoung lays his head on Kun’s collar and doesn’t bother with picking up the drink.

Kun pinches his boyfriend’s arm.

Dongyoung turns his head and nips at the junction of Kun’s throat and his shoulder.

Letting out a hum, Kun combs his fingers through Dongyoung’s hair and unconsciously angles his head back to allow him more room.

Giggling, Dongyoung kisses the spot he bit. “Don’t get too comfortable, laoshi. I actually want to see this movie.”

“I wasn’t— It felt nice.”

Dongyoung hums a sound of disbelief and kisses his neck again before he sinks back into Kun’s chest.

For as much as he complains about distractions during movies, Dongyoung sneaks his chilly hands underneath Kun’s shirt and doesn’t take them out, drawing shapes and raising goosebumps all along his waist. Kun wonders if he’s able to focus like that, because Kun definitely only picks up half of what is going on — especially after one of Dongyoung’s hands crawls up his stomach.

Kun grips the hand through his shirt before it can reach his chest. “I thought you wanted to see this movie.”

The hand Dongyoung still has at his waist dips below the band of his jeans.

“Mhm.”

Kun clears his throat. “It’s...a little hard to tell when it seems like you want to go to bed.”

Finally, Dongyoung looks up at him, amusement glittering in his eyes. “Is that what it _seems_ like? Even after I told you I wanted you all to myself and that you’re not allowed to sleep tonight?”

Heat quickly travels up Kun’s neck and into his face. “Honestly, I thought you were talking about the movie marathon.” He releases Dongyoung’s hand and his boyfriend slips it out of his shirt in favor of cupping his cheek.

“God, I love you.” Dongyoung leans in and presses his lips firm against Kun’s, spreading his legs thrown over Kun’s lap until he’s straddling him.

Kun gets a grip on his thighs, mostly to ground himself, as he lets Dongyoung drags his teeth over his bottom lip. Dongyoung gives an appreciative hum and deepens the kiss, easily slipping his tongue into Kun’s always eager mouth and skillfully mapping out its geography.

They haven’t had a lot of time to get intimate in the time since they’ve started dating — have had _no_ time to be honest — and Kun reminds himself that when he feels his stomach fill with nerves and warmth travel between his legs faster than he expected.

Dongyoung slides his feet to the floor to stand. Kun follows, chasing after his mouth and swallowing the chuckle his boyfriend lets out.

“Let me take care of you for your birthday?” Dongyoung says once Kun gives him the space to breathe.

Exhaling shakily, Kun nods. He leads Dongyoung to his bedroom without bothering to turn off the movie. As soon as they’re inside the room, Dongyoung turns him around and curls his fingers in the hem of Kun shirt, pulling it up and off. No sooner than he drops it on the floor, his hands are on Kun again, appraising the shape of his arms and the undefined lines of his chest.

And where his hands go, his mouth follows — over the muscle of his arms, across his chest, down the sensitive plain of his stomach. It’s almost reverent, the way Dongyoung looks at him as he explores Kun’s body, and Kun’s hands shake the slightest bit when he grips Dongyoung’s shoulders.

Dongyoung undoes the button of Kun’s jeans and pushes them down his legs. “Lie down for me?”

Unable to do anything else but listen, Kun steps out of his pants and then sits on the edge of his bed, sliding back until he’s in the center. He watches, enchanted, as Dongyoung strips himself of his clothes and joins him.

Kun wants to explore him too, wants to worship the most beautiful man he’s ever seen let alone been lucky enough to call his, but when he reaches for Dongyoung, his boyfriend shakes his head and tells him again to lie back.

”This night is all about you.” Dongyoung places his hand along the inside of Kun’s knees and eases his legs open.

Kun shakes his head. “It’s the night before my birthday.”

Dongyoung presses a line of kisses along the inside of his thigh. “Think of it like a countdown to your birthday. Like how New Year’s Eve is more important than the actual day.”

“Baby, that doesn’t make any sense.” Kun sucks in a breath, hips bucking slightly when Dongyoung curves a hand around the base of his shaft.

“Yeah, whatever,” Dongyoung answers immaturely before taking Kun into his mouth.

Hissing a curse under his breath, Kun slides a hand over the back of Dongyoung’s neck. He expected his boyfriend to tease, but Dongyoung treats him good, works his mouth around Kun until he pulls off to ask if Kun has any lube and a condom or if he should go get what he has stuffed in his coat pocket.

Kun points him toward the bathroom and soon Dongyoung returns with a nearly full bottle of lube and a square packet.

“I’m not...” Kun sighs when Dongyoung crawls back onto the bed and straddles his hips, aligning their shafts and wrapping a hand around them. “I wasn’t expecting this so I’m not exactly prepared.”

“I know.” Dongyoung leans down and captures his mouth again, rolling his hips into Kun and swallowing his desperate groan. “I am, though.” He sits up to pick up the lube and open it. “But if you want to go for a second round later after a shower, I’m sure I can time it to make you come right as midnight hits.”

They share a mutual groan as Dongyoung presses slick fingers inside himself.

“You’re having way too much fun with my birthday,” Kun complains, taking the lube from Dongyoung so he can wet his hand and wrap it around the both of them as Dongyoung stretches himself open. “But yeah...yeah we can do that.”

**EPILOGUE**

“Hyung.”

Donghyuck pauses their game of FIFA and shifts on the couch to look at Kun with a pair of dark eyes. Frowning, Kun puts down the game controller and returns the teen’s stare. In the nearly two years that he’s known the boy, there haven’t been many times where he’s seen the kid so serious. He’s come to Kun a few times to talk when he was too embarrassed to go to his father, whether it be about school or Renjun or general youth anxieties, and Kun wonders what it is this time that is bringing his child down.

“What’s up? Everything okay?”

Donghyuck plays with the controller in his hands, turning it over and over again between his palms. “Can I ask you a question?”

Kun nods without hesitation. “Of course. Anything.”

Turning the controller on last time, Donghyuck sets it in his lap and sighs. “When are you going to ask my dad to marry you?” He asks, rather plainly for how far down he brought the mood.

Kun’s jaw pops open like a lid that doesn’t fit.

“Because the longer you take, the less I’m going to give my permission.”

“Okay, wait, stop.” Kun holds up a hand, waving it around without direction. “What?”

“He asked when you’re going to marry our dad.”

Flinching, Kun looks behind the couch to see Jisung walking out of the kitchen with a plate holding strawberry jam covered toast. Both he and Chenle have grown into scrawny things with wild limbs and even wilder appetites. He’s watched a number of children grow in his time as a kindergarten teacher, but nothing has ever been so beautiful and heartwarming as watching them graduate from kindergarten and start elementary school earlier in the year.

“Are you hungry again already? We just finished dinner.”

Jisung looks down at the toast in his hand. “Yup.” He walks over to the kitchen table and slides into a seat. “Are you marrying Papa or not?”

Kun looks between Jisung and Donghyuck. “If you’re going to gang up on me, you might as well call Chenle too.”

Donghyuck shrugs. “Okay.”

He shouts for Chenle who comes shuffling down the hall a minute later with a look of confusion on his face.

“What is it?”

Donghyuck ignores the side-eye Kun gives him. “We’re trying to tell Kun hyung that he should marry dad already.”

Chenle blinks. “Oh, yeah.”

“Like, put a ring on it and move in already,” Donghyuck says to Kun. “Renjun and I are going to get married before you do at this rate.”

“You’re going to marry Renjun hyung?” Jisung asks. “Aren’t you too young to get married?”

“Yes,” Kun answers quickly.

“But not you, dad, you’re old so you should marry papa soon.”

Kun pretends he’s going to throw a couch cushion at Jisung who laughs into his toast. He spares a quick glance at Chenle who decides to stay and flop onto the floor in front of the couch before finding Donghyuck’s serious gaze again.

He sighs. “I want to ask him to marry me but I haven’t found the right timing.”

Donghyuck scoffs. “Right timing,” he mocks. “Have you even bought a ring?”

Kun lifts his hips, slips a hand into the pocket of his jeans, and pulls out a tiny black jewelry box. “Of course.”

Eyes blowing wide, Donghyuck leans forward and take the box out of Kun’s hands, flipping it open to reveal the silver band with a small, inlaid diamond.

“Dude, this is gorgeous and you still haven’t asked him to marry you?!”

“I’m getting around to it!”

“Is this a conversation I’m not supposed to hear?”

Both Kun and Donghyuck snap their heads up and slowly turn their heads to look at Dongyoung standing in the entryway to the hall that leads to the bedrooms.

Kun feels his heart drop to his stomach.

“Oh, shit.” Donghyuck snaps the jewelry box shut and shoves it into Kun’s hands.

Dongyoung’s warm smile dissolves as he settles Donghyuck with a sharp look for his language, but it returns just as quickly when he turns to Kun.

“ _I think now would be a good time_ ,” Jisung mumbles in Mandarin, mouth full of toast.

“ _Shut up, Jiji_ ,” Chenle hisses.

Dongyoung looks like he’s holding back a laugh as he crosses through the living room to enter the kitchen, Kun’s eyes following him the entire way.

Donghyuck elbows him none too gently. “Go, go, go.”

Kun lets himself get pushed and dragged off the couch and toward the kitchen. Dongyoung is grabbing a glass from a cabinet when he walks in. Kun fiddles with the jewelry box as he watches his boyfriend open the refrigerator and take out the orange juice.

It’s not that he’s been afraid of asking Dongyoung to marry him. He’s known for a while that he wants nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with Dongyoung and witness as his three boys grow into men. He literally carries the ring with him any time he knows he’s going to see Dongyoung.

He’s not even worried about being rejected; they’ve talked about getting married before and Kun knows that Dongyoung wants it as much as he does. He’s been overthinking of how romantic he should set the scene, as he’s prone to do, and his thoughts have been making him stall.

“Yes.”

Kun is snapped out of his thoughts and blinks at Dongyoung who turns around with his glass of orange juice at his lips. “Yes?”

Dongyoung laughs, hiding his big, beautiful smile behind the glass. “Is the answer to the question of ‘Dongyoung, would you marry me?’ that I think you meant to ask at some point, but Hyuck ruined by being a loud mouth.”

A smile spreads on Kun’s face. “This is not how I expected this to go.”

“I don’t know.” Dongyoung takes a sip of his juice and then sets the glass on the counter. He approaches Kun and loops his arms around his neck. “I think this kind of proposal is more my style. It’s cute. A nice story to tell people.”

Kun curves a hand around his boyfriend’s waist. “Are you teasing me?”

“Maybe.” Dongyoung whispers, his soft mouth brushing against Kun’s own. He trails light fingers up the back of Kun’s neck to play with the short strands of his hair as presses more insistently against his lips.

Kun hums into his mouth, pulling Dongyoung closer by the waist.

“Ew.” They hear mumbled from outside the kitchen.

“Goodbye, boys,” says Dongyoung without drawing away.

Kun feels the brush of his fingers as Dongyoung waves them away behind his back. He only has a second to chuckle before Dongyoung slips his tongue into his mouth and steals his breath away.

Blindly, he opens the jewelry box and takes out the ring. He tugs at Dongyong’s left arm and pulls it between them to slip the ring onto his forth finger.

Dongyoung presses one last peck to his lips and looks down at his hand. “It’s beautiful.”

“ _You’re_ beautiful.”

Dongyoung laughs and Kun is surprised to hear it sounds a little wet. “You don’t have to sweet talk me anymore, we’re engaged now.”

Kun fits the box in his pocket again so he can properly hold Dongyoung in his arms. “Are you going to cry?”

Dongyoung scoffs, but there are tears lining his eyes and his bottom lip wobbles adorably. “Sorry, it just actually hit me that was the worst proposal ever and these are actually tears of laughter.”

He doesn’t even get through to the end of the joke without choking on a sob. Hushing him gently, Kun pulls Dongyoung’s head down to rest on his shoulder and rubs a hand up and down his back.

“ _I love you, Mr. Kim_.”

Dongyoung laughs and then cries harder. “I love you, too.”


End file.
